Last week, I pushed pause on the long-form in favor of a poem celebrating teachers. It felt good to stretch those muscles again, and as my second most popular post to date, I was just as much relieved as excited to know it was received well. I’m just a sensitive dude, ya know?
At it again this week because life is for livin’.
I’ve written a lot on here about my cautious optimism regarding AI in education, so long as we are centering relationships and productive struggle. They are the heart of teaching and learning. There are ways for AI to make elements of school life more efficient, but the focus on productivity, on hacks and quick learning, misses the mark. Life and learning are about experiences—with people, with ideas, with the world, and within yourself.
Lets teach that, and let’s live that.
The AI That I Want
Danny Scuderi
Instead of boosting productivity,
I want the AI that boosts
Laughter and contemplation,
Daydreams and connection.
I want the AI that lets me hold on to that feeling
When I wake up and feel rested,
Or the nostalgia when I think back
To when I would
Stay up with my best friends
Too excited about our crushes,
That we couldn’t wait to
Confess them.
I want the AI that makes me embrace my imperfections
As making me greater than
Not less than.
The one that makes me worry less
And wonder more;
The one that can bottle the sound of a thunderstorm,
Or multiply the last few minutes of the sunset
By a hundred more.
I want the AI that makes people hold the door
For the person behind them
And wave thank you in the mirror
When you let them merge while you’re driving;
That tells you where your keys are
When you really, really, really need to find them;
And the one that lets me reuse my old password to sign in.
I want the AI that makes ice cream healthy;
Places the perfect bite on my fork every time,
And makes me want to do everything my doctor tells me;
The one that protects the reefs and the forests
And keeps the ice caps from melting.
I want AI to give me the sound of
A thousand more rustling leaves in the trees
Or that feeling you can see on the first day of spring;
The AI that glitters more stars in the sky
And lets me touch with my hands all the
Love bursting within me.
See, I’ve been searching fervently
For more time with my family,
More dinners with friends,
Bigger skies to capture the twilight
Before the horizon makes it end.
So instead of artificial,
Give me the intelligence that's
Authentic and intense,
That lets us delve more into depth,
That lets us take in the small moments
And be grateful for our breath;
That connects us to perspectives
And lets the beauty of this all
Settle in our chest.
‘Cause these days, I count more grays in my beard
And fewer of any on my head.
I’ve still got miles to go
But I know one day it will end.
And when that day comes,
When I’m lying in my bed,
The only productive I’ll want
Is to look back on this life
And see everything from stillness to wonder to laughter to strife,
And feel lucky that I got to feel any of them.
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