We have reached a frontier where risk and worry seem perilous, next to the promise of possibility and reward with AI. Artificial intelligence is challenging our ways of doing business and life, challenging people and industry with decisions on how to move forward from here—and what’s happening in Learning and development (L&D) is no exception! LinkedIn is flooded with examples of synthetic voices and talking heads –
“Turn text into video in minutes,” – they say!
Sure, if you want your learners to feel less and less like there’s a human on the other end who cares about what they’re learning. This is just an example of AI as a shortcut strategy. But there’s more to it.
Both curious creators and learners are actively experimenting with generative AI to learn, develop new products, take shortcuts, and save time. But are we giving up too much? Are there any breaks on this runaway train—if only to ask questions?
AI, in many ways, has become a teacher – a sort of savant consulted by hungry knowledge seekers at their whim! And I’m not talking about the small letter “l” learning for little things like, “What’s the weather like in Dallas today?” No. It’s things like, “I wonder what new code AI can teach me… (or help me create) today?”
This is not as large a jump as one might think. After all, humans have gotten used to asking Siri for just about anything for years. And haven’t we all consulted Google daily now for decades? The information is out there. But what’s reliable? Who’s teaching the AI teacher? And with the instant recall of AI tools and search engines, what information are we truly retaining from it all? Most of us don’t even know the phone number of our closest loved ones (something unheard of just 15 short years ago). Yes, our devices take care of that for us – but does this make us better?
With the growing influence of such a new and untested learning partner, our work is cut out for us. As L&D professionals, we should want to know and understand how adults are choosing to learn and the format of content they’re growing accustomed to experiencing.
For example, as learners, we know that nothing makes us more disinterested than to be forced to sit through monotonous material, where we have no control over navigation nor the ability to revisit content for review. Contrary to older L&D styles, today, subject matter experts (SMEs) freely share easy-to-digest information on YouTube and other spaces. And truthfully, it’s not that bad! Not only is the material practical, but personable and entertaining. And now AI has the speed-crawling power to sift through, organize and suggest learning material to its users — but also to ‘lift,’ rephrase and reshare existing material that content creators have already put out there. I like the first part of this equation… but the second part leaves me uneasy.
Not all AI-sourced material is adequate to meet our learning challenges. It’s still in raw format, with plenty of inconsistencies. And what about that whole “lifting of ideas and content created by others” thing? AI feeds off our collective intellectual property. To whom is the credit due?
A healthy perspective on getting started with AI might be this: It’s our job to collaborate with SMEs, stakeholders, and even other content creators to design learning solutions that solve real problems. AI is a quasi-SME and a tool. Like Wikipedia, it can be a good start to the knowledge we seek to decipher and scaffold for our audiences, but it cannot stand on its own.
Many of my colleagues incorporate AI into their practice, as have I. I do this partly to know what others are experiencing and partly to reinvest time savings into other endeavours (further customization, scenarios, and so on). But for creators, at least, its use should come with great caution and consideration – and never at the expense of allowing ourselves and others to truly think.
