AI Can Alter your Mind, Man!

Author

Neil Almond
October 08, 2024

Greeting and salutations human,

đź“š Knowledge builders

  •  Craig Barton on NotebookLM → Maths educator and podcast host, Craig Barton, provides a look at how he is getting the most from Google’s NotebookLM to help get his work done quicker.

🤖 Industry updates

  •  An AI Companion for Everyone â†’ Prophesied this time last year, Microsoft Copilot is now being marketed as that assistant. Highlights that are coming soon include:

    • Enhanced Personalisation: Copilot will adapt to your mannerisms and preferences, providing more intuitive and personalised assistance.

    • Contextual Understanding: It will understand the context of your life, safeguarding your privacy and data while offering support and encouragement.

    • Dynamic Interaction: Copilot will evolve over time, becoming more capable and aligned with your needs, acting on your behalf with your permission.

    • New AI-Powered Experiences: Integration with apps like Paint, Photos, and Clipchamp, and support for the latest DALL.E 3 model from OpenAI.

  • AI Altered Photos can Alter Memories â†’ In this cool study, researchers have found that showing AI altered photos can create false memories. The study titled “Synthetic Human Memories: AI-Edited Images and Videos Can Implant False Memories and Distort Recollection” explores how AI-altered visuals can affect human memory. Here are the key points:

    1. Objective: To investigate the impact of AI-edited images and videos on creating false memories.

    2. Method: 200 participants were divided into four groups, each exposed to different types of visuals: unedited images, AI-edited images, AI-generated videos, and AI-generated videos of AI-edited images.

    3. Findings: AI-edited visuals significantly increased false recollections, with AI-generated videos of AI-edited images having the strongest effect. Participants were 2.05 times more likely to form false memories in this condition compared to the control group.

    4. Implications: The study highlights potential applications in therapeutic memory reframing but also raises ethical, legal, and societal concerns about the use of AI in altering human memories.

✨ Fresh prompts

  1. Non-example scenarios → I think the use of scenarios are under-utilised in schools as a tool to get teachers thinking hard about something. Whether it is around procedures around safeguarding to performing a mental walkthrough of a routine, scenarios can be a powerful way to direct attention to deep structures. However, writing them can take time and care to ensure that it contains what you want.

    I have found that the most effective prompts provide some narrative as what an effective thing (whatever you need a non-example for)is and why and then asking the LLM of your choice to use that. Providing some possible examples has also made the output more accurate. 

Here is the make-up of an effective routine:
It takes repeated practice for routines to become automatic, especially for more complex tasks. Daily routines, like lining up after break time, will become automatic faster than less frequent ones, such as preparing for PE. When progress seems to plateau, it's crucial to stay consistent and avoid changing the routine, as this can prevent pupils from reaching automaticity. Instead, deliberate and planned practice is essential, whether by physically rehearsing or asking pupils to verbalise the steps. This ensures that routines, even less frequent ones, become deeply embedded over time.

I need you to write a non-example scenario of a teacher who has not done these things with regards to a simple daily routine. It could be that they have been off sick and have returned to find the routine no longer embedded, or they assumed because the pupils were successful over a couple of days that this routine was embedded.

Here is the output:

Mr Johnson, a Year 4 teacher, established a simple daily routine where pupils were expected to sit quietly at their desks and prepare their materials when they returned from break time. During the first few days of term, he explained the routine clearly and had the students practise it. The pupils performed the task well for a few days, and Mr Johnson assumed that they had fully grasped it. Confident that the routine was embedded, he stopped reinforcing it and moved on to other classroom tasks.

However, a week later, Mr Johnson fell ill and took a few days off. Upon returning, he noticed that the pupils were no longer following the routine correctly. Some students wandered around the classroom, others talked loudly, and a few didn't have their materials ready. Frustrated, Mr Johnson reminded them of the routine, but the next day, the same issues arose.

In response, Mr Johnson decided to change his approach, thinking that tweaking the routine or giving different instructions might help. However, the changes only confused the students further, as they struggled to understand the new expectations. Mr Johnson became increasingly irritated, failing to realise that his inconsistency was the problem.

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As ever, thanks for reading and keep on prompting! Mr A 🦾