Should Smart Phones be Banned from School Campuses?

[Evilroddy]

One school in the State of Massachusetts thinks so and the ban it adopted has produced excellent results after being one year in place. The students are given dumb phones with very limited capabilities but are not allowed to bring their smart phones onto the campus. Is this a way forward in a world where Chat GPT and other AI are replacing human thinking and reasoning skills in primary and secondary educations?

What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

Teachers say mobile phones make their lives a living hell – so one Massachusetts school barred them

www.theguardian.com

It's worth a read!

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

[Gaius46]

One school in the State of Massachusetts thinks so and the ban it adopted has produced excellent results after being one year in place. The students are given dumb phones with very limited capabilities but are not allowed to bring their smart phones onto the campus. Is this a way forward in a world where Chat GPT and other AI are replacing human thinking and reasoning skills in primary and secondary educations?

What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

Teachers say mobile phones make their lives a living hell – so one Massachusetts school barred them

www.theguardian.com

It's worth a read!

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

ChatGPT is not replacing human thinking. WaPO did an interesting experiment recently where they sent a bunch of ChatGPT written college entrance essays mixed in with ones written by humans to Harvard admissions people. None of the ones written by ChatGPT were acceptable.

ChatGPT is the equivalent of paint by numbers. Once you get past the gree whiz factor it writes like shit.

 

[mrjurrs]

One school in the State of Massachusetts thinks so and the ban it adopted has produced excellent results after being one year in place. The students are given dumb phones with very limited capabilities but are not allowed to bring their smart phones onto the campus. Is this a way forward in a world where Chat GPT and other AI are replacing human thinking and reasoning skills in primary and secondary educations?

What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

Teachers say mobile phones make their lives a living hell – so one Massachusetts school barred them

www.theguardian.com

It's worth a read!

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

Couldn't agree with the article more, but there is an obvious problem. A pretty homogenous 57 student school will not have the same issues with a ban as a 2,000 student public HS.

 

[Bucky]

If you ban smart phones, what about smart watches or smart glasses?

 

[Bucky]

ChatGPT is not replacing human thinking. WaPO did an interesting experiment recently where they sent a bunch of ChatGPT written college entrance essays mixed in with ones written by humans to Harvard admissions people. None of the ones written by ChatGPT were acceptable.

ChatGPT is the equivalent of paint by numbers. Once you get past the gree whiz factor it writes like shit.

ChatGPT is fed off human thinking and information.

The more information ChatGPT has, the better it becomes.

 

[j brown's body]

One school in the State of Massachusetts thinks so and the ban it adopted has produced excellent results after being one year in place. The students are given dumb phones with very limited capabilities but are not allowed to bring their smart phones onto the campus. Is this a way forward in a world where Chat GPT and other AI are replacing human thinking and reasoning skills in primary and secondary educations?

What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

Teachers say mobile phones make their lives a living hell – so one Massachusetts school barred them

www.theguardian.com

It's worth a read!

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

Yes. Absolutely.

 

[Goshin]

I'm not generally too keen on banning things.

However, as someone who ran an office with 27 employees, and saw how so many were so addicted to their phones that they couldn't get their work done, I can see where it might be useful in a school setting.

 

[JasperL]

ChatGPT is fed off human thinking and information.

The more information ChatGPT has, the better it becomes.

It's still just a tool.

 

[trixare4kids]

One school in the State of Massachusetts thinks so and the ban it adopted has produced excellent results after being one year in place. The students are given dumb phones with very limited capabilities but are not allowed to bring their smart phones onto the campus. Is this a way forward in a world where Chat GPT and other AI are replacing human thinking and reasoning skills in primary and secondary educations?

What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

Teachers say mobile phones make their lives a living hell – so one Massachusetts school barred them

www.theguardian.com

It's worth a read!

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

Ask veteran teachers what they think. They'll tell you that learning, social interaction improved in the classroom.
Of course they should be banned. Phones should be turned off, and left out of the classrooms, secured in their lockers.

 

[Phys251]

One school in the State of Massachusetts thinks so and the ban it adopted has produced excellent results after being one year in place. The students are given dumb phones with very limited capabilities but are not allowed to bring their smart phones onto the campus. Is this a way forward in a world where Chat GPT and other AI are replacing human thinking and reasoning skills in primary and secondary educations?

What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

Teachers say mobile phones make their lives a living hell – so one Massachusetts school barred them

www.theguardian.com

It's worth a read!

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

Seems like the students were able to be more present with their studies and each other in the absence of smartphones.

I don't mind smartphone bans with the exception of emergencies, such as a school intruder.

 

[samiam5211]

ChatGPT is not replacing human thinking. WaPO did an interesting experiment recently where they sent a bunch of ChatGPT written college entrance essays mixed in with ones written by humans to Harvard admissions people. None of the ones written by ChatGPT were acceptable.

ChatGPT is the equivalent of paint by numbers. Once you get past the gree whiz factor it writes like shit.

This is the worst that programs like chatGPT will ever be.

 

[Gaius46]

ChatGPT is fed off human thinking and information.

The more information ChatGPT has, the better it becomes.

ChatGPT and all "AI" lack human creativity. Even with more information the best it will ever do is still just mimicry.

Going further there's an interesting court case now wending it's way through the system. A journalist used ChatGPT to gather information about a court case that had to do with embezzlement of funds from a non-profit by one of its' officers. ChatGPT literally got every fact wrong - including the person who's the defendant. The guy named in the article as defendant is suing the journalist and OpenAI for defamation.

 

[Gaius46]

This is the worst that programs like chatGPT will ever be.

Until we figure out what makes the human brain tick and how to replicate it in silicon no "AI" will ever match an intelligent, creative human.

 

[BirdinHand]

The school in the OP supplied every student with a non-smart phone.

I don’t see every district doing that.



I’m fine with rules stating a phone must be turned to silent/kept in a backpack.

I am against banning cellphones/smart phones in schools/on the student.

A school doesn’t get to dictate that my child is unable to reach ME in an emergency.

 

[reflechissez]

The school in the OP supplied every student with a non-smart phone.

I don’t see every district doing that.



I’m fine with rules stating a phone must be turned to silent/kept in a backpack.

I am against banning cellphones/smart phones in schools/on the student.

A school doesn’t get to dictate that my child is unable to reach ME in an emergency.

They were given dumb phones.

If a child is having an "emergency" at school and no adults around him/her know about it, something else is awry.

 

[Evilroddy]

If you ban smart phones, what about smart watches or smart glasses?

Bucky:

Ban them all and let God sort them out! Better education is more important than constant access to gadgets.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

[samiam5211]

Until we figure out what makes the human brain tick and how to replicate it in silicon no "AI" will ever match an intelligent, creative human.

We don't have to understand how the mind works to make something better.

They aren't trying to replicate the human mind.

 

[Gaius46]

We don't have to understand how the mind works to make something better.

They aren't trying to replicate the human mind.

What does it mean to be "better". Better at what? A forklift is better than a human at picking up heavy pallets but it sucks at baseball.

Digital computers are already better than humans at many things: arithmetic, searching vast quantities of data for patterns etc. But it requires creativity to invent calculus. Or relativity. Or paint Guernica. Or write MacBeth. We have no clue what creativity is. How can we make something "better" when we have no idea what the nature of that something is?

 

[samiam5211]

What does it mean to be "better". Better at what? A forklift is better than a human at picking up heavy pallets but it sucks at baseball.

Digital computers are already better than humans at many things: arithmetic, searching vast quantities of data for patterns etc. But it requires creativity to invent calculus. Or relativity. Or paint Guernica. Or write MacBeth. We have no clue what creativity is. How can we make something "better" when we have no idea what the nature of that something is?

You seem defensive about this.

Of course, "better" means better at some things.

Like writing papers. AI will be better than 98% of all humans at doing that in a year or two, and it will be able to do it in minutes instead of weeks.

"AI" is going to replace most tasks that humans do today. It is going be the biggest labor market disruption that anyone living has ever seen. The process of adapting to that is not going to be fun for the people who have to live through it.

 

[bomberfox]

Until we figure out what makes the human brain tick and how to replicate it in silicon no "AI" will ever match an intelligent, creative human.

If theres ever gonna be something like that i wanna see reploids .

 

[Gaius46]

You seem defensive about this.

Of course, "better" means better at some things.

Like writing papers. AI will be better than 98% of all humans at doing that in a year or two, and it will be able to do it in minutes instead of weeks.

"AI" is going to replace most tasks that humans do today. It is going be the biggest labor market disruption that anyone living has ever seen. The process of adapting to that is not going to be fun for the people who have to live through it.

Why would you think I'm being defensive? That's an odd characterization. I have an abiding interest in the subject - going back to my undergrad comp sci days - and just don't think today's AI is the awe inspiring breakthrough that many seem to. AI was originally defined by Minsky as

"the construction of computer programs that engage in tasks that are currently more satisfactorily performed by human beings because they require high-level mental processes such as: perceptual learning, memory organization and critical reasoning."

Nothing in the latest generation of "AI" tools meets that definition. They are simply an extension of what digital computers have always been good at - processing large amounts of data very quickly.

And while you're probably right that AI will write better papers than 98% of humans that probably says more about the deficiencies in our education system than the greatness of AI. It will be disruptive just like any new technology and it will probably obsolete some jobs that actually don't require real thinking but IMO we are a long way from AI being able to replace human intellect.

 

[samiam5211]

Why would you think I'm being defensive? That's an odd characterization. I have an abiding interest in the subject - going back to my undergrad comp sci days - and just don't think today's AI is the awe inspiring breakthrough that many seem to. AI was originally defined by Minsky as

"the construction of computer programs that engage in tasks that are currently more satisfactorily performed by human beings because they require high-level mental processes such as: perceptual learning, memory organization and critical reasoning."

Nothing in the latest generation of "AI" tools meets that definition. They are simply an extension of what digital computers have always been good at - processing large amounts of data very quickly.

And while you're probably right that AI will write better papers than 98% of humans that probably says more about the deficiencies in our education system than the greatness of AI. It will be disruptive just like any new technology and it will probably obsolete some jobs that actually don't require real thinking but IMO we are a long way from AI being able to replace human intellect.

Because you keep saying that it will never replicate the human mind.

I have never said it will. it doesn't have to replicate us to be better and more efficient than us at almost everything that humans are paid to do today.

It doesn't have to be perfect to replace us.

yea, i'm not really talking about true "AI".

 

[Evilroddy]

Not all intelligence is human intelligence on this planet. AI need not mimic human intelligence in order to out-compete human intelligence and to displace human beings from the labour market and from the decision making cycles which humans have dominated to date. All it has to do is arrive at good solutions to complex problems more quickly, more reliably and far more inexpensively than human workers and managers to cause a capital and an economic shift which will cause unprecedented structural unemployment and the rapid contraction of labour markets in the next decade or two. The marriage of AI and quantum computing, which is beginning right now, will greatly expand AI flexibility in computation, machine decision making, inter-AI communication and most importantly in AI machine learning and self-programming, I reckon. When that happens, then humans will be supplanted from traditional roles of work at rates far in excess of the displacement caused by the industrial revolution and the past iterations of the digital revolutions.

The dumbing down of students through inadequate education and over-reliance on digital crutches will only accelerate and deepen this supplantation.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

[BirdinHand]

They were given dumb phones.

Yes. And unless we are giving dumb phones to every student, my position stands.

If a child is having an "emergency" at school and no adults around him/her know about it, something else is awry.

I remember being in 8th grade and getting my period a week early. We had pay phones so I called my mom to bring me another pair of pants.

Considering there aren’t pay phones in schools anymore - I don’t support leaving kids without a way to contact their parents. Not every kid wants to have to have a private conversation with a school staff member just to call Mom/Dad over something.

And then there are emergencies and situations where kids need to contact parents also. From something as simple as not having money for lunch or forgetting a folder to scarier and more tragic such as school shootings and bullying.

Schools aren’t parents. And they can’t dictate that they be privy to every conversation a student may want to have with their parent during the day.

 

[justabubba]

Ask veteran teachers what they think. They'll tell you that learning, social interaction improved in the classroom.
Of course they should be banned. Phones should be turned off, and left out of the classrooms, secured in their lockers.

how would they be able to call their parents when confronted with a school shooter ... or do those incidents no longer happen?