Egan and ChatGPT walk into a bar

A free Zoom event for subscribers... tonight!

Recently, I’ve been veering frightfully close to burning out. Mathematically, it might be expressed as:

  summoning the Skeleton Army
+ launching the new Learning in Depth cohort
+ researching wave–particle duality (for Science is WEIRD)
+ writing this blog
  ————————————————————————
  crap.

(Also, I teach a class on close reading. Also, we have three kids. Also, we’re looking to buy a house.)

On Friday, Kristin and I went out for a long date to figure out which of my responsibilities we can abandon. And when we came back, we had added a new project to the list.

Imaginary Interlocutor: Really, Brandon, at some point you can only blame yourself.

No, here’s the beauty of it: this project moves all the projects forward! Introducing…

“Egan and ChatGPT Walk into a Bar”

Facts:

• an hour-long live Zoom webinar

• tonight @ 8:30pm Eastern / 5:30pm Pacific

• for subscribers, Skeleton Army members, & the LiD cohorts

• free!

The issue:

AIs like ChatGPT¹ are the biggest educational story of the decade… but they have a lot of folks worried. Don’t they hallucinate fake facts? Don’t they make cheating (on essays, on math, on science) as easy as clicking a button? And even when you use them well, don’t the make things too simple — steering us to answers without having to struggle to really understand anything?

Well: Alessandro and I think AI may be the greatest thing that could happen to Egan education… because we can use Egan’s paradigm to converse brilliantly with ChatGPT.

To put it plainly: we need the lost tools of learning to power high-tech AI.

What’ll happen:

We’re going to take a topic, and use ChatGPT to rapidly grow knowledge that’s (1) accurate, (2) emotionally compelling, and (3) connects to the big picture of life, the universe, and everything.

Which topic? The audience will decide.

Frankly, this is what I’m looking forward to — I won’t be able to plan ahead for this. (I love surprise!) You’ll see me thinking through how to Eganize this in real time, using his tools and kinds of understanding to make personally meaningful sense of dull academic content.

I’ll be pulling from this new list of tools (and kinds of understanding) that Alessandro and I created this summer:

(This is a work in progress, by the way.)

It’ll be like a live cooking show: anything could happen!

When you log in, I’ll invite you to suggest topics that you (or your kids) have found dull. We’ll pick one together, and then I’ll have to the end of the hour to research it in real time using ChatGPT, sharing my screen and answering your questions as I go.

Q: But what sorts of topics are you taking?

Anything you (or your kids) have found boring:

Geological time scale. Renaissance history. Photosynthesis. The rules for using commas. Long division. Whatever.

By the end, you’ll not only know about the topic, you’ll care about it… and you’ll understand how to start doing this for any topic.

Q: Who can come to it?

This is an experiment, so I’ll limit it to paid Substack subscribers, everyone signed up for the next Learning in Depth cohort, and everyone who’s already signed up for the Skeleton Army.

Q: How much is it, for them?

Free. (The Zoom link is below, for the paid subscribers; LiD & Skeleton Army people, check your inbox.)

Q: Will you do more in the future?

Yes, depending on how this goes.

Q: How does this move forward Learning in Depth?

Our first month of LiD is dedicated to learning to master LLM AI’s. Eganizing them is the first step… so if this event works well, we can repeat it, and call it outreach for LiD.

Q: How does this move forward the Skeleton Army, and writing the Egan homeschooling book?

Egan education is all about learning about things in real depth, and connecting to them with your emotions and body. That’s hard. LLM’s give us the opportunity to make this a lot easier. I’m thinking that they’re going to play a significant (if technically optional) role in Egan homeschooling. This is a way to explore whether we can quickly teach this to others.

Q: How does this move forward the blog?

I’ve been terrible about posting, lately! (Though: the next pattern is already scheduled for t’morrow, look forward to it.) But when I started the blog a year ago, I wanted to do something like this. I’m thinking this’ll be… good!

Q: And can we chat with you during this?

Probably! This is a fun way to be social, maybe.

Q: Will this be online to view later?

That depends on how it goes… In any case, the Zoom link is below, for paid subscribers.