Abstract
After two months of intense debate about ChatGPT3 in the classroom, it seems unlikely that the structure and organization of education will disruptively change. The narratives and arguments were not entirely new, but OpenAI and ChatGPT3 provided props and thrilling playgrounds to make-believe different worlds and share fascinating stories, even without believing them themselves. This presentation examines functions and linguistic features of “futuristic communication” (Grunwald 2013) and make-believe (Roßmann 2021) to explain the motivation of hyping and the emergence of hype about ChatGPT3 in education and compares it to earlier debates about Wikipedia and MOOCs in education.
Hype and alarmism create hyperbolic levels of attention and expectations around issues and easily jeopardize health decisions, resources, and trust in science. ‘Hyping’ is overstating the certainty and relevance of facts and, thus, violates norms of science communication (Intemann 2020). Revealing and distinguishing different functions of future-oriented communication, however, allow us to explain what motivates unintentional and strategic pretense.
Most prominently, political economy studies suggested that many future-oriented practices do not aim to factually realize a project but instead manipulate the value of research assets (Birch 2017). The Sociology of Expectation highlights a coordination function, as stakeholders mutually observe and adjust their projected actions (Borup et al. 2006). Hermeneutic Technology Assessment (Grunwald 2020) understands visionary communication as a relevant medium for social debates about related values and virtues. And finally, the philosophy of imagination (Kind 2016) discusses how constraining the imagination allows learning.
The focus of this talk is on the theoretical development of our empirical approach to technology hype in education. We aim to illustrate how hype dynamics work and accelerate by attention patterns and linguistic features of an inverted ‘Chinese whisper’ effect that helps to spread the most extraordinary stories which then call for a sobering critique that maintains their topicality.
Hype and alarmism create hyperbolic levels of attention and expectations around issues and easily jeopardize health decisions, resources, and trust in science. ‘Hyping’ is overstating the certainty and relevance of facts and, thus, violates norms of science communication (Intemann 2020). Revealing and distinguishing different functions of future-oriented communication, however, allow us to explain what motivates unintentional and strategic pretense.
Most prominently, political economy studies suggested that many future-oriented practices do not aim to factually realize a project but instead manipulate the value of research assets (Birch 2017). The Sociology of Expectation highlights a coordination function, as stakeholders mutually observe and adjust their projected actions (Borup et al. 2006). Hermeneutic Technology Assessment (Grunwald 2020) understands visionary communication as a relevant medium for social debates about related values and virtues. And finally, the philosophy of imagination (Kind 2016) discusses how constraining the imagination allows learning.
The focus of this talk is on the theoretical development of our empirical approach to technology hype in education. We aim to illustrate how hype dynamics work and accelerate by attention patterns and linguistic features of an inverted ‘Chinese whisper’ effect that helps to spread the most extraordinary stories which then call for a sobering critique that maintains their topicality.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 2023 |
| Event | STS Italia 2023 - Bologna, Italy Duration: 28 Jun 2023 → 30 Jun 2023 https://eventi.unibo.it/stsitalia2023 |
Conference
| Conference | STS Italia 2023 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | Italy |
| City | Bologna |
| Period | 28/06/23 → 30/06/23 |
| Internet address |