Not So Fast
On Friday morning, a few hours after I sent you the last newsletter, we picked Poppy up from the veterinary hospital. The nurse presented us with the little tennis ball Poppy had picked up in the park and tried to squirrel home unseen, swallowing it, we think, just as we got back to the apartment – surely the most expensive piece of sports equipment I’ve ever owned. [Obligatory: consider becoming a paid subscriber?]
She’s recovering as well as can be expected, high as a kite on a combination of gabapentin, trazodone, and some other non-opiate pain pill. The nurse quipped that no one, not even dogs, gets “the good stuff” anymore. Nonetheless, she’s spent the last few days as a Rottweiler version of “David after Dentist.”
It’s been almost 17 years since David’s dad uploaded this video to YouTube – one of the earliest “viral videos” I can remember viewing, an artifact of what feels like an altogether different Internet era.
I say “feels like” because “eras” are constructs. Past events aren't neatly ordered on a timeline or arranged like a high school history textbook, split into clearly defined chapters, one period ending on page 178 and the next beginning on page 180.
One could argue “David after Dentist” reflects this current Internet era. Or, one could position it as part the long history of home video – in this case posted online in the early days of YouTube, but surely not the first time a parent has widely shared their child’s most embarrassing moment. Is “David after Dentist” all that different from all the videos churned out today, purposefully performing for the camera, for “clicks,” for sponsorship dollars? Maybe. Maybe not. Is it something from “an altogether different Internet era” or are we still stuck in that same period – all this viral video content an expression of an American drive for fame and notoriety, one that certainly predates digital technologies and dear David. (I’m currently reading Emily Nussbaum’s Cue the Sun on the history of reality TV, a genre that feels quite foundational for today’s Internet culture. And sadly – you have to imagine me glowering at Mark Burnett here – a genre that explains American political culture too.)
But “the Internet changed everything,” we’re told again and again. And now “things are changing faster than they’ve ever changed before” – my god, we love these stories. They too feel true.
But are they?
A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk to a group of NYC principals about AI in schools. It was the first time I’d spoken in public in years, and in preparation, I went back through some of my old lectures and keynotes to remind myself that I had, at one point at least, said some smart things on stage. I was really struck by how, even a decade ago, I was often talking about artificial intelligence – about Silicon Valley and the ed-tech industry’s plans to automate education. I wanted to remind my audience back then, my audience of principals a few weeks ago, and now you, Second Breakfast readers, of that history.
The story that things are moving faster than ever can make us feel uneasy, off-kilter. And perhaps that’s intentional. Much like Steve Bannon’s desire to “flood the zone with shit,” this claim that we are experiencing unprecedented, rapid technological change serves to overwhelm us and drive our decision-making processes in ways that benefit those who want to stoke our fears of being left behind, so that we buy their product, their service, their worldview.
But AI has been around for 70 years now. And from the very outset, its proponents have sought to shape education. AI has experienced hype cycle after hype cycle, breakthrough after breakthrough, failure after failure. It has over-promised and under-delivered.
We have time – we really do – to be thoughtful.
