12 minute read
FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL
FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL
The following excerpt is taken from a recent talk Trevor gave to students during a recent assembly.
I want to talk to you tonight about intelligence, and eventually, about how it relates to integrity. It will take me a while to get there. Bear with me.
I started thinking about this recently when we discussed artificial intelligence in Headmaster Tea. Artificial intelligence is basically the progression of computer intelligence towards human intelligence. You all know Siri, Alexa, and other examples of this. What interested me the most was when we started talking about the various ways intelligence, artificial or otherwise, is defined.
One idea is that we will know we have achieved an artificial intelligence when it becomes difficult or impossible to distinguish between a human and a computer in written conversation. A man named Alan Turing came up with that test in 1950 and argued that a computer capable of passing as a human would be proof of its ability to “think.”
We’ve been working towards that ever since.
You probably know that many of the help chats you engage with are artificial intelligences. If you go
outside their ability to “think” you will be passed off to a real human being, which is my primary goal any time I use one. Sometimes though, it is hard to tell. They have gotten very good. Have any of you ever wondered if you are talking to a computer or to a real person? Me too.
In Tea, we talked about whether or not the ability to pass as a human in day-to-day conversation is a valid test of intelligence. We ended up discussing… what IS intelligence? That seems simple enough as a question, but a lot of the characteristics we think of as “intelligence” aren’t very useful in trying to understand whether or not a machine has achieved the sort of intelligence normally associated with a human being.
Are Jeopardy contestants intelligent? What about Jeopardy champions?
We have had computers for decades that can beat every Jeopardy champion, every time. Does that make the computer more intelligent?
Computers, as a general rule, win when competing against even the very best human beings in chess, checkers, and other games or activities with known, predictable rules, actions, and results.
But few would argue that any artificial intelligence has even approached the potential of the human mind because the ability to respond to a question (a stimulus) with a previously known answer (a response) is not a good measure of the kind of intelligence that matters most.
Computers are simply better than we are at that, and yet, we don’t look to the computer to move our civilization forward. Computers are tools. They are hammers, not carpenters. Brushes, not artists. They are “comput-ers,” not “thinkers,” not “philosophers.”
I’m going to read you a few quotes out of courses on the Delphian program and out of our faculty training materials that came to mind while I was thinking about this. They are the words of Mr. Hubbard:
A good grade is supposed to be synonymous with a bright mind. It is actually, under the present system, only a measure of ability to receive and recall data…and no measure of the student’s ability to do anything with the knowledge if ever transplanted into another environment.
Taking an artificial intelligence that appears capable of “thought” in one area and transplanting it into another where it can demonstrate similar intelligent “thought” is one of the challenges faced by programmers in this field. It is such a challenge largely because it takes imagination to transfer ability from one area to another, and imagination is what artificial intelligences struggle with the most.
In another essay, Mr. Hubbard wrote that:
There are men, usually in the fields of the arts and philosophy, who postulate new realities for the social order. Social orders progress or decline in ratio to the number of new realities which are postulated for them. These postulates are made, usually, single-handedly by men of imagination.
Are you seeing a connection between these ideas?Last quote from Mr. Hubbard:
There are just as many degrees and kinds of intelligence as there are children.
Every one of you has an intelligence, an imagination, that is unique to you.
The most valuable intelligence and the intelligence most unique to human beings is the opposite of the stimulus-response (question/answer) sort of intelligence that computers are so good at.
The most uniquely human intelligence is the ability to take two or more pieces of data, whether previously known or newly observed, and combine them to create something new.
An imperfect word to describe this is simply: Imagination.
This, along with the other concepts I’ve shared with you tonight, got me thinking about how often I exercise the sort of intelligence that is unique to me as a human being.
How often is my imagination engaged? How many of my thoughts and interactions are programmed thoughts and programmed interactions vs. the imaginative, unique thoughts that only I am capable of?
Do you know what I mean?
The truth is that contemplating this was at first a little depressing. I realized that a large percentage of my day is spent uploading the barrage of data and ideas presented to me by others. A large percentage of my day is spent sharing this data and these ideas with others, without having exercised my imagination in the direction of creating something new, even if only a thought, an idea, a conclusion.
I cringe now at how many times I have responded as a computer to a friend’s greeting.
“How are you?” programmed response, “I’m doing pretty well,” (regardless of how I’m actually doing). Insert smile. “How are you?”
This sort of thing passes for human conversation, but such conversations are easily replicated by machines.
I could give you a few more examples, but would rather you come up with your own. To help you do that, I’ll ask you a few questions.
How much of OUR day do we spend looking at our phones, our computers, our social media feeds? How much of our day is spent liking the things we’ve been influenced to like and disliking the things we’ve been influenced not to like? How much of OUR day is spent looking for stimulus and then responding in the way we’ve been programmed to respond?
How often does the stimulus we receive also tell us what to think and feel about the information?
Here are some real headlines for you to think about:
“Inside the One Hundred Twenty-Eight Million Dollar Heist that SHOCKED the World and the Chase that Followed”
“Shanghai Metro Sparks COVID PANIC with Festive Red QR Codes”
“People are OUTRAGED by This Jimmy John’s Employee Sign”
“Why People are OUTRAGED Over a Rice Cooking Video”
Or this simple headline,
“PEOPLE ARE OUT- RAGED!”
How many of us have had our concept of beauty shaped by media or by society rather than by our own thoughts? What about our concept of morality? Of what is good? Of what is evil? Normal?
We are bombarded with data and with both subtle and unsubtle suggestions regarding what we should think about it.
Have you now come up with some examples of your own?
Alright. But I’m now at risk of leaving you depressed. That isn’t what I wanted to do tonight.
Tonight I want to draw your attention to the intelligence that is unique to you. Your imagination and with it, your ability to see, evaluate and make conclusions of your own.
I want you to know that I see it when you exercise it, and I want you to know that doing so is celebrated here at Delphian.
I see it in your essays. I see it in the wins you share. I see it in the new ideas you come up with on your student council posts. I see it in the art gallery, in the makerspace, in the ceramics studio, and in the murals on the walls. I see it on the basketball and volleyball courts, and on the soccer field. I see it in the way you interact with each other, not as “programs” but as caring, imaginative, and intelligent human beings.
I see it as you dream about and discuss your futures and as you select the goals and purposes you will pursue in life.
Your imagination is what I value most, and like a muscle, it will get stronger with use. I hope tonight’s talk increases your focus on the creation of new ideas—ideas unique to you.
And this finally leads us to integrity.
In my opinion, true integrity is too often confused with the “programmed” viewpoints, data, and ideas prevalent in our society. Celebrating as integrity the “programs” that are written by what we see and by what we are exposed to makes us no better than machines.
The intelligence and the integrity I want to celebrate can only be gained through your own unique evaluation of what you see and learn, and through the exercise of your imagination. An idea. A point of view. You will have full ownership of what you create
in this way, and it is your integrity to those things that matters the most to me.
I’m going to close by reading you a message from Alan Larson that was in the Student and Parent Handbook way back in 1983. It is titled “What We Expect of a Student.” It is still what we expect of a student today.
What We Expect of a Student
We expect a student to apply his best efforts to improvement and growth.
In order for Delphian to be the right school for a student, the student must understand what we mean by improvement and growth and must want them for himself. The family must also understand what we mean by these and want them for a student. Otherwise, we will be working at cross-purposes and none of us will be happy with the results.
We want students who develop positive, dynamic goals and the integrity to pursue them, irrespective of whether they “fit in” or not. We want students who become able to do what is right without worrying whether their peers think it is “square” or not. We may not expect every incoming student to already have these abilities, but we do expect him to want this and to work very diligently and productively to achieve it.
Any leader worth the name has had goals he aspired to and the integrity to hold on to them despite social pressures to “fit in” and not “rock the boat.” Thus, it is not a primary purpose of this school to produce graduates who “fit in.” We have no urge to teach students that “adjusting to their environment” is something to aspire to.
If society were not in such a tailspin, morally, productively, and socially, perhaps we would not feel such an urgent need to produce some leadership to help pull it out. However, it is, and we do. We do a service to no one if we allow students to aspire to grow up and go out and “fit in” to a society that is in a tailspin. They must be able to confront changing their lives and their environments for the better. They must have a strong moral grounding and, from that, be able to form and pursue positive goals, with the courage to march to the beat of a different drummer.
This is integrity. It is what we expect our students to develop. They will have the opportunity. It is up to them to seize it.
A student should not come to Delphian seeking a school where he can slip in and quietly obtain a diploma so he can go out and quietly fit into the tailspin.
A student should come to Delphian prepared to become part of a group that is constantly
creating the above viewpoint. He should expect to have his productive viewpoints prized highly. He should aspire to a high ethical level, and welcome the idea that his classmates and the school will expect it of him. It is one of his main contributions to the school. He should understand that the payment of his tuition and fees is basically his entry ticket to the community. From there on, his continued membership depends on his maintenance of a high level of exchange with the group. This will take the form of work projects, helping run the school, maintaining the school, helping his fellows, and—most of all—improving and developing himself.
If the student does that, and we expect it, an enormous amount of learning will occur.
And we will have fun while we do it.
Alan LarsonHead of School 1976-1991
