[jfarmer]

I sometimes find Paul Watzlawick's five axioms of communication helping in thinking about situations like this.

Link: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Watzlawick#Five_basic_axi...)

  1. One cannot not communicate

  2. Every communication has a content and relationship
     aspect such that the latter classifies the former
     and is therefore a metacommunication

  3. The nature of a relationship is dependent on the
     punctuation of the partners' communication procedures

  4. Human communication involves both digital and analog
     modalities

  5. Inter-human communication procedures are either
     symmetric or complementary

Re: (1), the "mere" act of using AI communicates something, just like some folks might register a text message as more (or less) intimate than a phone call, email, etc. The choice of modality is always part of what's communicated, part of the act of communication, and we can't stop that. Re: (2), that communication is then classified by each person's idea of what the relationship is.

This is a dramatic and expensive way to learn they had different ideas of their relationship!

Of course, in a teacher/student situation, it's the teacher's job to make it clear to the students what the relationship is. Otherwise you risk relationship-damaging "surprises" like this.

Even ignoring the normative question of what a teacher Should™ do in that situation, it was counterproductive. Whatever benefit the teacher thought AI would provide, they'd (hopefully) agree it was outweighed by the cost to their relationship w/ students. All future interactions w/ those students will now be X% harder.

There's a kind of technical rationale which says that if (1) the GOAL is to improve the student's output and (2) I would normally do that by giving one or more rounds of feedback and waiting for the student to incorporate it then (3) I should use AI because it will help us reach that goal faster and more efficiently.

John Dewey described this rationale in Human Nature and Conduct as thinking that "Because a thirsty man gets satisfaction in drinking water, bliss consists in being drowned." He concludes:

”It is forgotten that success is success of a specific effort, and satisfaction the fulfillment of a specific demand, so that success and satisfaction become meaningless when severed from the wants and struggles whose consummations they are, or when taken universally.”

The act of receiving and incorporating feedback is not "inefficient", especially not in a school setting. The consummation of that process is part of the goal. Maybe the most important part!

Full Dewey quote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44597741