AI grifters and some self-reflection

This week's post is going to be pretty short.

Over the past week, I've had interactions with two different groups of "AI-in -education experts," and they each left me feeling some combination of despair, disgust, incredulity, and anger. And so I wrote what was essentially a rant dunking on AI grifters whose core competencies sum to little more than cramming as much LinkedIn thought-leader technospeak into a vision statement as is linguistically possible.

After sleeping on it, though, I decided I didn't want to post that rant. Not because I doubted the verity of it – I wholeheartedly believe that the vast majority of consultants in the field of education trying to sell you their "AI expertise" offer little that you couldn't either 1) learn from free online resources or 2) figure out on your own with an hour or so of intentional thought.

I decided I didn't want to post it because I don't want to be someone who dunks on other people online. The piece felt cathartic to write, but I suspect it wouldn't feel great to post, even if it got lots of attention or if it resonated with people. My whole rationale for starting this blog was to give myself a venue to work out ideas. And the ideas I worked out in the not-to-be-posted rant don't represent what I want this space to be. Since I'm not trying to make money doing this, I can make decisions that optimize for my values over engagement.

I'll end with this. If you're in public education – if you're a teacher, a school administrator, a school district administrator, whatever – and someone tries to sell you their "AI expertise," please realize that whatever they want you to buy is almost certainly not worth your time or money.