Status Updates From Teaching Machines: The Hist...

“Despite Skinner’s fantasies of a well-engineered and egalitarian society in his novel, his prescriptive behavioral programming could never lead to freedom, [SNCC] activists discovered, as it sought to shape and control, denying agency to the people they sought to uplift. And agency was key to learning”

These moments of insights are what make the book worthwhile but they are few and far between.

BF Skinner in 1958 (but might as well be talking about ChatGPT): “Will machines replace teachers? Ok the contrary, they are capital equipment to be used by teachers to save time and labor. In assigning certain mechanizable functions to machines, the teacher emerges in his proper role as an indispensable human being… In return for his greater productivity he can ask society to improve his economic condition”