Researchers Break New Ground with a Turkey Baster and Zoom

April 4, 2023

Vea4_thumb_thumbNote: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

I do not recall much about my pre-school days. I do recall dropping off at different times my two children at their pre-schools. My recollections are fuzzy. I recall horrible finger paintings carried to the automobile and several times a month, mashed pieces of cake. I recall quite a bit of laughing, shouting, and jabbering about classmates whom I did not know. Truth be told I did not want to meet these progeny of highly educated, upwardly mobile parents who wore clothes with exposed logos and drove Volvo station wagons. I did not want to meet the classmates. The idea of interviewing pre-kindergarten children struck me as a waste of time and an opportunity to get chocolate Baskin & Robbins cake smeared on my suit. (I am a dinobaby, remember. Dress for success. White shirt. Conservative tie. Yada yada._

I thought (briefly, very briefly) about the essay in Science Daily titled “Preschoolers Prefer to Learn from a Competent Robot Than an Incompetent Human.” The “real news” article reported without one hint of sarcastic ironical skepticism:

We can see that by age five, children are choosing to learn from a competent teacher over someone who is more familiar to them — even if the competent teacher is a robot…

Okay. How were these data gathered? I absolutely loved the use of Zoom, a turkey baster, and nonsense terms like “fep.”

Fascinating. First, the idea of using Zoom and a turkey baster would never roamed across this dinobaby’s mind. Second, the intuitive leap by the researchers that pre-schoolers who finger-paint would like to undertake this deeply intellectual task with a robot, not a human. The human, from my experience, is necessary to prevent the delightful sprouts from eating the paint. Third, I wonder if the research team’s first year statistics professor explained the concept of a valid sample.

One thing is clear from the research. Teachers, your days are numbered unless you participate in the Singularity with Ray Kurzweil or are part of the school systems’ administrative group riding the nepotism bus.

“Fep.” A good word to describe certain types of research.

Stephen E Arnold, April 4, 2023

Comments

Comments are closed.

  • Archives

  • Recent Posts

  • Meta