In my most recent departmental meeting a colleague of mine made an interesting point about the direction of technology as it regards math education.

With the introduction of ChatGPC we finally will see the rest of the academy suffer as we have already suffered. In particular, for decades we have faced the problem of explaining why we should still teach something a computer can "do". Now all the other academic disciplines face the same fate.

He took this as a positive. In particular, we should now have greater solidarity with other disciplines who also find themselves needing to explain how dare they teach something which a computer can "do".

But, I'm not as much an optimist. I foresee two very different paths forward, one a path of redemption towards greater intellectual purity, the other the path of pragmatism where our pigeons come home to roost:

• Path One: other disciplines encourage mathematics and the sciences to reject the push to applications motivated teaching. We return to the concept that education at it's base is for knowledge and skill. Education is not job training. Sure, it may provide training for some jobs, but that cannot be it's primary motivator (unless of course the education is hosted by a business which is training employees for a specific task, which is well and good, but probably should be done in businesses rather than universities). In this hypothetical universe, other departments in the university join together to reject automation of thinking whether inside or outside of math and together we seek a future where our progeny learns critical thinking.

• Path Two: we accept the direction of society and give up on people having to think for themselves. Instead, we train them how to use ChatGPC etc. to form thoughts for them. After all, it is more efficient to use a computer to think thoughts. Moreover, if we have people use ChatGPC then we can be sure they don't think unapproved thoughts. If everything we write is done by some AI then the government's ministry of information can more readily enforce proper speech. People writing of their own volition and style then would be renegades, indeed dangerous purveyors of unprofessional speech. We would sell students not writing their own papers as a best practice and we would soon find a vast literature which supports the efficacy of automatic paper writing and argumentation as an evidence-based-methodology. Surely students in this future who wrote papers with their own impartial and flawed understanding of grammar and such would be no match for their peer's professional ChatGPC-based writing. This sort of thing is already done in math where we compare results of students doing homework in a system which essentially spoon feeds them the method against traditional methods where students have to think for themselves.

In any event, I support fedja's answer. It is correct. We must insist on proctored, internet free exams if we are to have universities with meaningful degrees. The fact that accreditation bodies are not meaningfully policing online education degrees with the expectation of proctoring endangers the whole program of higher education. It is an existential threat as the proliferation of online courses with low quality more and more makes ordinary folks question the value of our degrees ( and rightly so ).

In my most recent departmental meeting a colleague of mine made an interesting point about the direction of technology as it regards math education.

With the introduction of ChatGPT we finally will see the rest of the academy suffer as we have already suffered. In particular, for decades we have faced the problem of explaining why we should still teach something a computer can "do". Now all the other academic disciplines face the same fate.

He took this as a positive. In particular, we should now have greater solidarity with other disciplines who also find themselves needing to explain how dare they teach something which a computer can "do".

But, I'm not as much an optimist. I foresee two very different paths forward, one a path of redemption towards greater intellectual purity, the other the path of pragmatism where our pigeons come home to roost:

• Path One: other disciplines encourage mathematics and the sciences to reject the push to applications motivated teaching. We return to the concept that education at it's base is for knowledge and skill. Education is not job training. Sure, it may provide training for some jobs, but that cannot be it's primary motivator (unless of course the education is hosted by a business which is training employees for a specific task, which is well and good, but probably should be done in businesses rather than universities). In this hypothetical universe, other departments in the university join together to reject automation of thinking whether inside or outside of math and together we seek a future where our progeny learns critical thinking.

• Path Two: we accept the direction of society and give up on people having to think for themselves. Instead, we train them how to use ChatGPT etc. to form thoughts for them. After all, it is more efficient to use a computer to think thoughts. Moreover, if we have people use ChatGPT then we can be sure they don't think unapproved thoughts. If everything we write is done by some AI then the government's ministry of information can more readily enforce proper speech. People writing of their own volition and style then would be renegades, indeed dangerous purveyors of unprofessional speech. We would sell students not writing their own papers as a best practice and we would soon find a vast literature which supports the efficacy of automatic paper writing and argumentation as an evidence-based-methodology. Surely students in this future who wrote papers with their own impartial and flawed understanding of grammar and such would be no match for their peer's professional ChatGPT-based writing. This sort of thing is already done in math where we compare results of students doing homework in a system which essentially spoon feeds them the method against traditional methods where students have to think for themselves.

In any event, I support fedja's answer. It is correct. We must insist on proctored, internet free exams if we are to have universities with meaningful degrees. The fact that accreditation bodies are not meaningfully policing online education degrees with the expectation of proctoring endangers the whole program of higher education. It is an existential threat as the proliferation of online courses with low quality more and more makes ordinary folks question the value of our degrees ( and rightly so ).

In my most recent departmental meeting a colleague of mine made an interesting point about the direction of technology as it regards math education.

With the introduction of ChatGPC we finally will see the rest of the academy suffer as we have already suffered. In particular, for decades we have faced the problem of explaining why we should still teach something a computer can "do". Now all the other academic disciplines face the same fate.

He took this as a positive. In particular, we should now have greater solidarity with other disciplines who also find themselves needing to explain how dare they teach something which a computer can "do".

But, I'm not as much an optimist. I foresee two very different paths forward, one a path of redemption towards greater intellectual purity, the other the path of pragmatism where our pigeons come home to roost:

• Path One: other disciplines encourage mathematics and the sciences to reject the push to applications motivated teaching. We return to the concept that education at it's base is for knowledge and skill. Education is not job training. Sure, it may provide training for some jobs, but that cannot be it's primary motivator (unless of course the education is hosted by a business which is training employees for a specific task, which is well and good, but probably should be done in businesses rather than universities). In this hypothetical universe, other departments in the university join together to reject automation of thinking whether inside or outside of math and together we seek a future where our progeny learns critical thinking.

• Path Two: we accept the direction of society and give up on people having to think for themselves. Instead, we train them how to use ChatGPC etc. to form thoughts for them. After all, it is more efficient to use a computer to think thoughts. Moreover, if we have people use ChatGPC then we can be sure they don't think unapproved thoughts. If everything we write is done by some AI then the government's ministry of information can more readily enforce proper speech. People writing of their own volition and style then would be renegades, indeed dangerous purveyors of unprofessional speech. We would sell students not writing their own papers as a best practice and we would soon find a vast literature which supports the efficacy of automatic paper writing and argumentation as an evidence-based-methodology. Surely students in this future who wrote papers with their own impartial and flawed understanding of grammar and such would be no match for their peer's professional ChatGPC-based writing. This sort of thing is already done in math where we compare results of students doing homework in a system which essentially spoon feeds them the method against traditional methods where students have to think for themselves.

In any event, I support fedja's answer. It is correct. We must insist on proctored, internet free exams if we are to have universities with meaningful degrees. The fact that accreditation bodies are not meaningfully policing online education degrees with the expectation of proctoring endangers the who program of higher education. It is an existential threat as the proliferation of online courses with low quality more and more makes ordinary folks question the value of our degrees ( and rightly so ).

In my most recent departmental meeting a colleague of mine made an interesting point about the direction of technology as it regards math education.

With the introduction of ChatGPC we finally will see the rest of the academy suffer as we have already suffered. In particular, for decades we have faced the problem of explaining why we should still teach something a computer can "do". Now all the other academic disciplines face the same fate.

He took this as a positive. In particular, we should now have greater solidarity with other disciplines who also find themselves needing to explain how dare they teach something which a computer can "do".

But, I'm not as much an optimist. I foresee two very different paths forward, one a path of redemption towards greater intellectual purity, the other the path of pragmatism where our pigeons come home to roost:

• Path One: other disciplines encourage mathematics and the sciences to reject the push to applications motivated teaching. We return to the concept that education at it's base is for knowledge and skill. Education is not job training. Sure, it may provide training for some jobs, but that cannot be it's primary motivator (unless of course the education is hosted by a business which is training employees for a specific task, which is well and good, but probably should be done in businesses rather than universities). In this hypothetical universe, other departments in the university join together to reject automation of thinking whether inside or outside of math and together we seek a future where our progeny learns critical thinking.

• Path Two: we accept the direction of society and give up on people having to think for themselves. Instead, we train them how to use ChatGPC etc. to form thoughts for them. After all, it is more efficient to use a computer to think thoughts. Moreover, if we have people use ChatGPC then we can be sure they don't think unapproved thoughts. If everything we write is done by some AI then the government's ministry of information can more readily enforce proper speech. People writing of their own volition and style then would be renegades, indeed dangerous purveyors of unprofessional speech. We would sell students not writing their own papers as a best practice and we would soon find a vast literature which supports the efficacy of automatic paper writing and argumentation as an evidence-based-methodology. Surely students in this future who wrote papers with their own impartial and flawed understanding of grammar and such would be no match for their peer's professional ChatGPC-based writing. This sort of thing is already done in math where we compare results of students doing homework in a system which essentially spoon feeds them the method against traditional methods where students have to think for themselves.

In any event, I support fedja's answer. It is correct. We must insist on proctored, internet free exams if we are to have universities with meaningful degrees. The fact that accreditation bodies are not meaningfully policing online education degrees with the expectation of proctoring endangers the whole program of higher education. It is an existential threat as the proliferation of online courses with low quality more and more makes ordinary folks question the value of our degrees ( and rightly so ).