User X Tool = Output

Do you ever get sucked in to those YouTube videos where people make elaborate structures in the jungle using really basic tools?

I love those things.

So satisfying, you know?

But guess what would happen if you sent me into the jungle with a stick and told me to build a swimming pool?

I'd laugh. Or I'd throw the stick at you.

Because me X that stick ≠ a swimming pool.

Instead me X that stick = a waste of our time.

Here's my point: tools are amazing, but their output is totally dependent on their user. If it's a hammer or a screwdriver, I can do the basics, nothing special. But if it's a laptop connected to the Internet, I can make the blog you're reading, or my new book.

The tool's not the thing. The user is.

And I think this is true even in a world where you can ask a chatbot to give you five lessons for teachers from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, and the chatbot can actually do it.

Is the chatbot an amazing tool? No doubt. Does it do things I can't do? Yes.

But could it produce the response I asked it for had I not thought to ask it?

As of now, no.

Could I enjoy its response as much as I did were it not for my recent viewing of The Shining?

No again.

It's the user, silly.

It's the teacher.

It's the student.

AI won't change that.

Best,

DSJR