TLL Articles: Big Brother is ‘Rating’ You

No longer content simply to watch, Big Brother is now rating you. Or at least, big tech is. Today, an article in The Guardian describes the ‘dystopian’ working conditions of some of the staff who work in Co-op’s Legal Services. Specifically, that they now have all their calls monitored and rated by AI. Conversations about probate, wills and estates are scrutinised by a supercomputer, which then produces a percentage score for the interaction. I seem to recall a Black Mirror episode with a similar premise…

Unsurprisingly, the staff are less than happy about this. But why? What does it matter if your calls are monitored? Surely if you’re doing a good job, you don’t need to worry? If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

Putting aside issues about privacy and data protection, let’s just focus on the emotional impact of this, because it’s at the heart of one of our key decisions at TLL: not to record our lessons. But it’s also about how we handle mistakes.

Let’s state the obvious. Humans make mistakes. Many times a day, we misspeak, commit little faux-pas, mangle a word, or say something downright ridiculous we didn’t really intend to. We often correct those errors. Perhaps with a little embarrassment, perhaps feeling a little foolish. But the moment passes and we move on. The last thing we would want is to think it will be replayed over and over again. No, that’s not quite right. The last thing we would want is the moment to be replayed over and over, accompanied with a detailed commentary of exactly how we were getting things so wrong. A commentary produced by an unfeeling machine that is now advising your boss about your ability to communicate. I cannot help but feel sorry for the staff at the Co-op and other companies where this sort of AI overreach is occurring.

But what does this have to do with education?

Young people, who are learning, make mistakes. A lot. As teachers, we of course have to point them out. But not all the time. Certainly not every time. It would be a sure fire way to kill confidence. Furthermore, somewhat paradoxically, we actually want students to take the risk of making a mistake and being wrong, or to mispronounce a word in an amusing way, or to stumble over an explanation they were sure made sense in their mind but sounds confused when said aloud. These present opportunities not only to learn, but for us to demonstrate how to handle these moments with kindness and compassion, good humour and grace – essential skills for navigating our social lives effectively.

No one is perfect.

No one always gets it right.

We’ll keep on making mistakes.

And when we do, we need to know that getting things wrong is part of being human and that it’s ok.

So, no, we don’t record our lessons because we want our students to feel as free as they can be to make mistakes and be human in our lessons. And no, we cannot say that scrutinising every word a student (or a tutor) says, could possibly lead to anything good.

AI is going to keep advancing into all aspects of our lives. TLL, however, will remain defiantly different. And, as we have done from the start, we’ll continue to promote interactivity, excellent relationships with students and a genuinely caring and compassionate approach to education.

We’ll always stay different, together.