Galatea 2.0

 

Pygmalion by Jean-Baptiste Regnault, 1786, Musée National du Château et des Trianons

The First AI Dating Service?

The Roman poet Ovid (43 B.C. -- 17 A.D.) tells the story of the sculptor Pygmalion in Book X of his Metamorphoses.  Appalled by the immoral behavior of the women of Cyprus, Pygmalion resolved not to marry, but ended up sculpting a statue so beautiful that he fell in love with it.  Enter Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, and before you know it, the statue came to life, and the two lived happily ever after.

Although Ovid does not give a name to the statue, later sources called her Galatea, and the story has been unendingly popular.  Just a quick glance at Wikipedia will give you an overwhelming list of poems and plays and artwork that the story has inspired.  Humans have long been fascinated with the idea of creating the perfect version of our own kind, and it would seem we still are.

Galatea and The Awkward Teen

My good friend and colleague Jason recently shared with some of us an article from the website Ditch That Textbook called "Protecting Kids from Unhealthy AI Relationships."  You must read it if you have any interaction with young people.  I won't go into the details here because you really should read the article itself.  Suffice it to say that Galatea 2.0 is here, and the dangers are real, so real in fact that they include the death of one young teen.

Some remember their teen years with fondness, and others would not revisit them with an all-expenses-paid trip through the space-time continuum.  Most of us, however, can recall at least some moments of social awkwardness during those times and we can imagine how powerful the pull would have been to have an AI friend who was always there for us, always available for a talk about anything, and always willing to take us as we were without a trace of judgment.  In fact, the idea of such a friend may be a strong pull for adults.  How much more would it be for the young person struggling to find his or her way in the world?

Real People

I am not Chicken Little.  I am not running around while frantically screaming, "The sky is falling!"  Nor am I a Luddite or technophobe.  Yet there is a profound, important difference between the interactions human beings have with each other and those they have with chatbots and the like, and it is vitally important that adults who have any responsibility for the care and development of young people nurture their relationships with real people.

Let's start with parents.  We cannot shove a device into the hands of our children so that we are then free to do the things we want.  The first relationships children develop are with their parents, but if their parents are presently absent, which is to say they are in the same room yet miles away in their own minds, children quickly learn what is important and that they are not it.  Many times I had to put off until later, or never, things I really wanted to do when our children were at home.  That was simply part of the job of being a parent.  I have written before that my mom believed strongly in looking children in the eye and giving them your full attention.  She knew how important it was for a child to feel important.

Now let's move on to teachers.  As all educators know, "ain't no tired like teacher tired, 'cause teacher tired don't stop."  If there is an academically sound reason to use technology, then we should use it, but if we bring out Kahoot or Blooket merely because we are exhausted enough to convince ourselves of their pedagogical value, then we have indeed taught something, but perhaps not what we intended.  Nothing can replace the direct, human-to-human interaction between teachers and students either for depth of academic engagement or richness of social development.  As I say so often, education is a distinctly human endeavor, and we do not serve well the humans in our charge when we farm them out to non-humans.

A Limited Menu

Those restaurants that serve the most carefully prepared foods are typically those that have few items on the menu.  They devote their time and resources to offering the best, not the most.  If a restaurant offers everything from rack of lamb to hotdogs with foie gras and fried mozzarella sticks on the side, it is less likely that any of the dishes will be done to perfection.

I had to say that because I want to conclude by advocating for extracurricular activities for children, yet I am in no way calling for additional busyness.  In fact, our children are often involved in far too many activities, but that is a topic for another essay.  Here I want merely to say that children do need to be involved with other, real human beings, and that this often happens well when they participate in sports, join music or drama programs, or become involved in extracurricular clubs.  When used properly, these opportunities are not merely places to warehouse young people after school and before bedtime.  They can be avenues through which they develop meaningful, human relationships, the kind that will last longer and contribute to richer life than can be hoped for with Galatea 2.0.