Amanda Werner on AI in Teaching and Teacherpreneurship: Part 2 In this episode, Amanda Werner, former teacher and current teacherpreneur, dives into her evolving perspective on AI, specifically chatbots like ChatGPT. After initially embracing AI for classroom use and her online business, Amanda shares why she has grown skeptical about the ethical implications of AI, particularly concerning content creation and copyright issues. She discusses her personal experiences with various AI tools and their impact on her professional life, while also touching on broader societal concerns over AI’s influence. This is Part 2 of a series, with the next episode focusing on her viewpoint as a parent.

00:00 Introduction and Support

01:51 Podcast Overview and AI Concerns

05:53 Teacherpreneur and AI Tools

09:26 Ethical Dilemmas with AI

17:28 Copyright Issues and AI

26:56 Conclusion and Next Episode Preview

Article Links: 

Generative AI is Challenging a 234-Year-Old Law

The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem

Reddit Sues AI Company Anthropic for ‘Scraping’ user comments to train chatbot

Transcript

Amanda: [00:00:00] Hi. Welcome back. I am Amanda Werner, your host and former elementary, middle, and high school teacher. I taught for 16 years, and this is my podcast. If you like the work and the the content that I’m sharing here, you can support what I do by going to my website, Amanda, right now, dot com. Clicking shop and looking through all the resources I create for teachers.

I’m making new games because I think what we all need right now in these stressful times is more fun, more humor. So I’m making new games. One of my most popular games is Mafia for the Classroom, and I. Um, I recently also created a Truth or Dare for the classroom, so if you’re interested in purchasing these resources, go to my website, Amanda, [00:01:00] right now, dot com.

And that’s W-R-I-T-E. Thank you so much for your support and if you want to. Keep up with what I’m doing, definitely follow the show, uh, subscribe, and then you’ll get updates and you’ll see new episodes and when they come out. Thank you so much for your support. I appreciate you so much. Uh, just taking the time to listen.

I really, um, I really, you know, I do this for you, so thank you. Thank you so much for supporting, supporting me and, and, and my, uh. Tendency to just want to talk and talk and talk and share all of my opinions and research. I love to research too, and, and share what I’ve, I’ve learned with you all. So let’s get to the episode now.

Welcome to the Empower Students Now podcast. A podcast about equity, neurodiversity, [00:02:00] mindfulness, and student engagement. There’s a lot that needs to change in our education system. The good news is teachers have the power to make these changes. Now,

this is part two in a series about why I am not okay with AI anymore. I wrote, I can’t, a series of, of blog posts about three years ago. Uh, when. Chatbots, AI and chat GPT first came on the scene and I was trying really hard to just be positive and you could check those. Episodes out. They are positive, uh, and they are very relevant still today, uh, even though I published these three years ago.

One is called How to [00:03:00] Talk to Students About Chat, GPT. The other one is Seven Ways. Chat, GPT will impact students positively. And another blog post I wrote is called My Best Ideas to Prevent Cheating With Chat GPT and How to Handle Plagiarism Suspects. So definitely check those out ’cause they’re definitely still relevant today.

Uh, but recently I have been really rethinking just ai. In general, like specifically chatbots, uh, because ai, I don’t know if you know this, but it’s been around for a long time. Um, I learned that like, uh, Google, like maps uses AI and, uh, so there’s, it’s, it’s AI is not just bots, right? It’s, it’s a lot of other things as well.

And so, uh, in part one, I talked about my perspective [00:04:00] on AI from a teacher’s point of view, and last year my attempts to sort of incorporate it into my classroom practices and just be really. Transparent and open with my students about using AI and like how to use it ethically and things like that. And I just, I just don’t, I don’t like to just ignore things, you know, that are happening in the world, like I think schools.

Try really hard to protect students from what’s going on outside of the schools, which is good, but it’s also really challenging because kids are coming into our schools with a lot of information. I mean, they have access to so much and. And, you know, their, their parents’ political views and just whatever news sources they’re [00:05:00] consuming.

Like they, they come in and whatever they’re going through personally, you know, they come in with a lot of their own context and, and so we have to. Do our best as teachers to sort of speak to what’s happening in a way that allows for many different viewpoints and opinions. ’cause everyone in our classroom, they all have their own, you know, perspectives and opinions.

Um, and teachers have to try as best as they can to remain objective. Right. Um, and. So I, I, I talked about my journey last year trying to, to, uh, embrace AI in my classroom and how that went. So definitely go check out that episode, um, if you haven’t already. But this episode is this, this is part two. This is about my [00:06:00] perspective when it comes to, uh.

Being a teacherpreneur. So I’m a teacherpreneur. Have you heard that term before? Uh, so this whole episode is gonna be about that and, and like how I have been. Uh, dabbling in the use of chatbots to support my online business. So, and then the next episode will be about, um, my views, um, as a parent. And yes, I, I’m sharing all of my opinions.

A lot of this podcast is just my opinions, but I’m also trying to share research and information from just, uh. News articles and I will definitely link the articles that I discussed today in this episode. Um, [00:07:00] so you can check those out in the show notes. I also have a link to my website too, in the show notes usually, and uh, so you can click that.

Alright, let’s go ahead and talk about this from a Teacherpreneur point of view. I was very curious to see how specifically chat GPT might help me in my teacher entrepreneur business, and I was especially excited about the potential for it to generate more. Ideas, like lesson ideas for me that, uh, could engage students and, and, and ideas for new resources.

I might wanna create and sell on my website and, and I’m on Teachers pay Teachers. Um. Which if you’re a teacher, I’m sure you have heard of that website. It’s kind of wild how many people have never heard of it. Like just the other day I was talking to a friend of mine who is, her occupation is, she’s a therapist [00:08:00] and I told her I sell curriculum on teachers, paid teachers.

And she was like, what teachers? What? And I, so it’s just so interesting ’cause it’s teachers being teachers has been along around for so long, but yet people who aren’t teachers. I have no idea what it is. Um, and so, yeah, I was super excited about this, as I’m sure many teacher entrepreneurs are. And I found, uh, recently ’cause chat, GPT and all these, you know, AI companies, they’re, uh, open ai, you know, is the company that is behind chat, GPT.

They keep coming out with new versions and new features. And recently, I think, I don’t know when this came out, but chat, CT can create tables, it can create slideshows, it can create PDFs, um, and then Dolly, right? It can create images. Whoa. I mean, it’s just [00:09:00] incredible, right? Um, and so I’ve played around with those, but I’m not that impressed with what the, the slide shows and the tables and the P fs look like they’re very basic.

Um, and sometimes they don’t even turn out, right? Like, you’ll, you’ll try and create something and then it’s just like a blank page and it’s like, wait, there’s nothing here. You know? So there’s a lot of glitches. Um, and so. And, and my last episode I talked about how I canceled chat GPT. So I was paying $20 a month to have the best features of it, and I canceled it.

And in this series I’m talking about why I’m not okay with AI anymore, and. Uh, open AI is not the only AI company, right? There’s many, many other ones. Um, like, you know, Google has its own AI features and, and, uh, I think it’s Gemini, right? That, that Google’s AI is called. And even when you Google search something, [00:10:00] there’s an ai, um, response.

Uh, and so there’s, all these companies are using ai. Um. There’s a company called Descrip, and I discovered this, this, uh, website, uh, a couple years ago maybe, and I started paying for it. It’s fairly expensive. And what it allows you to do it, it does a lot, it does a lot of things. Um, but one of the things I was using it for was, uh, so I would record an episode, a podcast episode.

And you can upload it to Script and then Descrip would transcribe it. It would create a transcription for me and, um, it. Creates, it could create like possible titles for the episode. It can create like show notes. It can create timestamps. It can even create like highlight reels or [00:11:00] shorts that I could, you know, publish.

I never have, I haven’t, I’m not really on social media anymore for many reasons. Um, but, uh, I know there’s, there are people that miss me, but I don’t know if I can ever go back. I, I just, it was too much, you know? It was too, too, too many things I was trying to do. And less is, less is more. But back to this topic, so.

I just, it was such a time saver, descrip, right? Like, especially when I was teaching and, you know, I can’t like create my own transcripts that would take hours and hours and hours and, um. And just being able to have timestamps and show notes, and it is just, whoa, this is, this is such a time saver, especially for a teacher.

Um, another tool that I know a [00:12:00] lot of Teacherpreneur use is called Canva. And I’m sure you’ve heard of it, haven’t you? You’ve heard of Canva. It’s a tool that even students and teachers use. Um. But many online entrepreneurs rely on Canva and it can create all sorts of things for you, you know, slides, products, PDFs, all sorts of things.

And it, it has its own a AI features as well. Um, you know, it can create graphics to tell it, tell you, tell it what you want, and it will just like. Pop out a, a, a graphic for my website and for a podcast episode. So I was doing that for a little while too. Um, and I’m like super, super embarrassed to admit that.

And this was out of cre curiosity. I even had chat GPT ’cause I was so curious. I had it write some blog posts for me [00:13:00] and every time I was amazed at the speed that it could write a blog post. And just like the quality of the information was pretty good. You know? It was good. It was, it was solid, it was accurate.

It was like. Well organized, you know. Um, but every time I did this though, I thought, I can’t use any of this. You know, like, this is wrong. How in the world could I transform this into my own? I think it would just be easier for me to just write this myself. So I would, you know, shut chat GBT down and then like, go to a blank Google Doc.

A bit frustrated. You know, like, and honestly, like I look back and I, I, it’s sad, it’s sort of sad realization that, um, like I couldn’t even implement the lessons that I was modeling for [00:14:00] my students a year ago. You know, when I was talking to them about how to use AI ethically and I was teaching them how, yes, you could try and get it to write an essay for you, but read the essay, write some notes about what you like about it, key words you might wanna use yourself, you know, like write about, you know, like what, what could you pull from this and make your own, and then close chat GPT, and start writing your own essay with that inspiration, you know?

At the forefront of your mind, but never, ever, ever, ever copy word for word, right? Like, this is what I taught my students, and I didn’t feel like I could even do that myself with these blog posts. It was just too weird. It was too overwhelming. I, I couldn’t, I couldn’t figure out how to do it. You know, like I just was like, this, this, I just might as well just write it on my own.

Um, I felt like I couldn’t compete on the same level. And so instead of feeling [00:15:00] inspired, I felt defeated and kind of like, what, what do I have to say about this anymore? Why should I even write this? Like, if cha people could just search cha GPT and get this kind of answer from it, like, what, what do I have to add?

You know, like what cha GPT had produced was so comprehensive. But it was also dry, you know, kind of boring to read and I know I could probably prompt it to make it more interesting. Um, but I don’t know, like it just started to sink in that having the bot right blog post for me as inspiration. It just, it wasn’t a good idea and I felt guilty for trying to teach my students to try this.

You know, like it was more like a feeling of defeat and like, what I’m just gonna spend my whole time that I could be writing my own thoughts down to try and like, [00:16:00] change what chat GPT created, like, so that it doesn’t, you know, like. So I’m not like being unethical and copying, and it just started to dawn on me that asking chat GPT to write things for you, like an essay, for example, students or, or an entrepreneur, like a blog post.

It’s a terrible approach to writing, even if it’s just out of curiosity. ’cause you wanna know what chat GPT has to say about the topic that you’re writing about. And the reason it’s a, it’s a terrible approach is because. It steals this essential struggle that writers face of like not knowing what you wanna say or how to say it until you start writing.

I’ve always told my students that writing is thinking, if chat GPT writes for you, it steals the. Opportunity that you have to investigate what [00:17:00] you think about a topic and how you might approach it in your own unique way. Using AI to write takes all that away from writers. I, I just, at this point, I know to my core that it is not a good thing to make.

You know, like chat, GPT or any ai write something for you just. You know, to start your writing process. I just don’t think it’s a good idea. Um, so transitioning into another topic, another huge important issue, and this is in the news a lot lately, um, and it’s this question of like. Where do AI companies, and not just AI companies, you know, like just companies in general like Canva or Descrip or, um, you know, like Facebook or whoever’s using AI right now, like where do they get all the [00:18:00] data?

That they feed to their chat bots, their AI chat bots, like where does that data come from? Well, as I started to research, I learned that the information that makes these bots intelligent, I’m putting that in quotes. Intelligent comes from the internet. So AI company bots are scouring the internet. Pirated libraries, so like libraries where there’s books that are copyrighted, but they’re available, right?

Like this is piracy, YouTube channels, Facebook groups, Facebook in general, Instagram, all of those places. These companies are compiling all of those words, all of that data, they’re just feeding these machines, right? Artists, writers, content is being fed to ai. [00:19:00] And then, you know, it’s, it’s like giving ai like what it, what it, what it needs, right?

To function. And then when someone goes and logs in on chat, GBT or wherever this data then is used, right? And then it spits out whatever, um, it’s found from the online world in some new kind of warped form, right? And it’s weird right now. There are many authors. Um, and companies suing Open AI and Google and Meta Facebook and a company called Anthropic, uh, for breaking copyright laws.

There’s even an ongoing case right now between Reddit and. Anthropic. So Anthropic is an AI company that says, or [00:20:00] is trying to prioritize ethics and users’ privacy, but Reddit is suing Anthropic and I’ll put a link to the article about this. Um. For Anthropic using conversations in Reddit, uh, forums to feed data to Anthropics chatbot named Claude.

All of these cases are ongoing. Um, and there’s an article in the Atlantic called generative AI is Challenging a 234 year law. It discusses these issues in much more detail if you’re interested in reading about it, the, or. Having your ki students read about it, you know, like discussing these issues, seeing what their opinions are, you know, I mean this could stimulate a huge, really interesting debate among your students, you know?

Um, ’cause it’s such a complex issue. [00:21:00] Um, so the AI companies argue that feeding their bots. This data is protected by fair use laws and that the chatbots produce something new and original from the data in the article. I’m gonna quote the article now. Um, so this is a quote. Tech companies argue that an AI product will make knowledge more accessible while the plaintiffs, like, like Reddit or these authors, um, argue that AI will reduce incentives for sharing that knowledge in the first place because it’s typically stripped of authorship and presented at the as the creation of ai.

Some writers have already stopped sharing their work online, and the courts will have to take seriously the idea that current AI training practices could have a chilling effect on human creativity. End quote. So, and, and this is where I’m at right now too. I’m just thinking like, wait, what, [00:22:00] what is my information safe?

Are, are, is, are there. The, the resources I’ve created, like, are they being stolen, you know, by, by ai. Even my kid, my 11-year-old kid who is an artist, started, um, to become very upset by all of this too, because some of their favorite artists that they follow on YouTube were talking about how unethical AI art is.

Um, we discovered together that there are even entire YouTube channels made by ai. The videos are all made by AI and they’re really popular, like they have lots of subscribers, and it’s just like they’re just growing in popularity. So even my 11-year-old is starting to have really strong feelings against the use of AI and that it’s unethical.

I feel sad that even my kid is feeling skeptical, uh, and, and just worried when encountering [00:23:00] content online. They also have that icky feeling when encountering images and content online, like maybe this is theft in disguised, in disguised by the hype that AI is only a helpful and intelligent technology and that they, that they’re.

Rights are protected by fair use, which, which I totally disagree with. It’s just making me question is anyone’s creative content theirs anymore? Can I post anything online on my website, on my podcast, on social media if I ever go back to social media or on YouTube without it being stolen by ai? And I’ve read two that that.

The, the creators of these AI products, you know, like Chachi, PT and Claude and Gemini, like, they can’t really control what, what, what is, um. Created like what, what’s said, right? [00:24:00] What, what the AI is saying to people, like when prompted, and sometimes it does just regurgitate entire, you know, pages of, uh, copyrighted material.

It’s, it’s shocking. Like they can’t really control their own chatbots.

It’s just, it just seems like copyright laws are just, they’re being broken left and right. Everything that is posted online is fair game for AI to swallow and spit back out at us. And if this cycle continues, eventually the internet will be composed of recycled content that was stolen from humans. Buy bots for humans to consume and then regurgitate again, even if I wanted though, to boycott ai, which a lot of authors are doing, um, like the comedian Sarah [00:25:00] Silverman, she’s really leading, uh, an effort to boycott it because of a book of hers that was part of a pirated library that was, um, used, you know, to source the data that the AI bots are getting.

Um. You know, but like boycotting it is really, really challenging because all these big companies are incorporating it somehow or another, you know? And like, how am I supposed to stop Googling things? You know? That’s like. Part of my like daily life now, you know, I think it’s part of all of our daily lives.

It’s like, it’s just like an inescapable new norm. And you know, I was talking to my husband the other night, like, I feel like. It’s almost like, like using plastic bags and paper towels. Like I know that I shouldn’t, and I should limit my use of these things for the environment, you know, [00:26:00] because I care about our environment and I care about changing climate change, you know, like reducing climate change.

Um. But like, do I still buy plastic bags and paper towels? I, I hate to admit it. Yes. You know, like, so like, ah, it’s really, really hard. I’m just, it’s like a, like a moral, like, like ethical conflict and I just. It’s really, really hard and complex, and I’m not judging anyone for loving AI because I was one of those people, right?

Like I still am, I’m still amazed by what it can do, but I do think that we all need to be aware of the nuances, um, and the problematic nature of all of this. Um, and that’s why I’m, that’s why I’m talking about it here on this podcast. So there is a through line between part [00:27:00] one when I was talking about being a teacher, trying to embrace AI and how kind of terribly that went.

And now as an entrepreneur, you know, having tried to embrace AI and the through line is that. Part one, I talked about this feeling of being hypervigilant, and I feel that as an entrepreneur, like I was hypervigilant in the classroom and now I’m hypervigilant as an entrepreneur, as I read other people’s blogs or posts on social media, I feel that same like alert, stressed out, hypervigilant tension that I felt in the classroom when I thought all my students were cheating.

But now it’s all the other entrepreneurs, writers and artists in the world. I’m questioning as I scroll online or on social media platforms, thoughts swirl, like, who wrote this? Was it ai? What about this art? Where did it come from? What [00:28:00] artists or writers work was used to make this, to create whatever I’m reading or seeing?

It’s creepy. So. I hope you stay tuned for part three where I talk about probably my most. It is my most important role, the role of a parent in all of this and what I have to say about how parents, um, are navigating all of this, specifically me and, you know, some of my parent friends. And so, um. I’m, I’m just attempting to kind of comprehend and articulate all of the nuances of what is happening here and how it’s impacting the various aspects of my life as a teacher, former former teacher, now Teacherpreneur, and a parent of an 11-year-old.

So the next episode, I will delve into all of this from a parent’s perspective, so stay tuned and thank you again for [00:29:00] listening.