🚸 Bonus Short: How Education is Failing our Children with Patrick Belliveau

Are we setting students up for failure by banning AI in schools? In this bonus short, Patrick Belliveau delivers a passionate critique of the education system’s outdated approach to technology.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I think we're on a really interesting trajectory.

(00:01):
And I think that I hope that the school system learns quicker
than they did with a calculator on how to adopt AI.
And I know you're homeschooling your kids.
I don't know, that's public.
No, I'm happy to talk about it too, but yeah.
Yeah, because I'm very interested in education.
Yeah, well, I think that's the,
what got you here won't get you there.
And I think it's never been more true.

(00:23):
And like I'm hearing horror stories of kids being,
okay, I'm gonna go in like a small rant,
just because I mean, this is an educational specific.
But there are tools out there that are AI checkers, right?
So they check the students work if they use AI.
It says right on their website, basically don't use us.
You might as well say we're completely false.
We shouldn't exist.

(00:44):
If capitalism wasn't a thing
and you guys weren't dumb enough to buy us,
we wouldn't be a business.
Literally is what that should say on the front cover,
but yet school systems buy them for a site.
And you are now putting kids on trial for having used AI.
Now some percentage of them, yeah, sure, they probably did.
But that thing is wrong.
And I can illustrate this point.

(01:06):
I use an AI thing, you for all, and I popped it in.
It said, yes, 100% plagiarized.
Then I told for all, hey, write this to avoid the checker
and write it as if I make some mistakes just to throw it off.
0% likelihood of AI.
Thanks guys, that's a really great product.
So we're putting kids on trial.
What are you teaching the kids here exactly?
And why are we doing?

(01:27):
Instead of saying, hey, if you don't use AI,
employers are not going to hire you.
That's like a real thing when you graduate.
So if we think of the education system
as creating productive members of society,
why on God's green earth would you not let them use the tools
that are effectively going to be mandated
by the employment market?

(01:48):
Like there's, again, I won't be amazed,
but a good friend of mine,
she mentioned that she was gonna hire,
she was looking for co-ops and she uses AI.
And one of the co-ops said, oh yeah,
we're not allowed to use it at school, so we don't use it.
So she didn't get the call.
So like, let's think about what we're doing here, right?

(02:08):
And let's look at the formula of what is the end goal
and work backwards from there.
And I think that some schools are getting it,
which is good, and some education, and they're not all bad.
I don't mean to paint everybody in the same brush,
but I just, it baffles me that a principal and a teacher
who definitely probably don't understand AI
are using a tool that basically openly says,

(02:30):
we shouldn't be a thing, and if you weren't dumb enough
to buy it, we wouldn't be a company,
to chastise a 16 year old who is still forming their identity.
And we know we have a mental health crisis
within teenagers and suicide.
Like really, this is where society thinks
this is the right way to add weight to them
is accusal for a crime that didn't commit,
give them no way of really proving that they didn't do it.

(02:53):
Like, this is scary.
Someone's gonna give their head a shake and go like,
this is not okay.
Like we can't do this.
It's not good for them long-term
and it's definitely not good for them near term.
So why are we doing this?
Maybe we need to rethink how we think about education
as opposed to forcing the children to conform.
I know you get that more than anyone.

(03:14):
And like with my four year old,
like I'm trying to figure out a way
to not put them in the system because,
and if we do put them in the system,
I'm gonna interview the school.
And honestly, if I have to drive them
an hour outside of wherever I gotta go,
he's not going to get an education
that's not gonna help him for his future.
He's just not into it.
And it's just scary that you have kids graduating

(03:35):
that are gonna be graduating in three months
or whatever it is from university.
I've never used AI.
That's the scariest thing.
They just spent like 40, 50, 60, 100 grand
to not know how to use the one tool
that every employer is gonna ask them how to use.
That sounds like a really good investment.
I'm not big on ROI.
I don't know a lot about it,
but that doesn't sound like that great
of an equation for me.
Again, not a blanket statement,

(03:57):
an opinion of one, all of the caveats,
but I just look at that and think,
how we, education is important
and we have to educate our members of society.
But if we measure intelligence on information retention,
then that definition, we're the dumbest relative to an AI.

(04:17):
So what are we saying here?
We're just dumber than an AI?
Okay, cool.
So we're done.
So we might as well just give up.
That's obviously not true,
but the idea of information retention,
because I'll tell you, I was a terrible student.
I mean, I had a funny thing where
I didn't get into a university for business

(04:38):
that just had me recently speak about business and AI.
And there's a school that I can't talk about in the US yet
that will come out that I'm pretty sure
would have laughed and like laughed would have been generous.
They would have fallen on the floor laughing
if I would have applied to that school with my marks.
And now we're doing an AI project.
So the reality is, just even if you're not a good student

(05:03):
and you need to hear this, like, you're gonna be fine.
You just have to keep working
and figuring out what you wanna do.
And yeah, I think it's important,
but we need to stop putting our children on trial
using a tool that openly says,
we're very bad at what we do.
In fact, we're not even really like good at it at all.
We guarantee nothing.
Yeah, we guarantee nothing, except,

(05:23):
I mean, I think it literally,
on one of them, they were at least honest enough to say,
please don't use this as the only source of proof.
Like if that's literally not trying to tell them,
please stop doing this, I don't know what is.
But anyway, so weird tangent,
but I think I get it's new
and I get that it's gonna shake some things
and I get that there's a learning curve,

(05:45):
but let's not play with our children's and our futures.
It's our future we're playing with.
Like, literally.
Let's be a little bit smarter if we can.
That's my little rise on education, but yeah.
Yeah.
I started this podcast because I wanted to
stand at the gate of businesses using AI

(06:05):
and see what separated hype from lasting impact.
Back when cities had walls,
you had to go into the city to do business at the market.
So if you wanted to talk to someone,
you waited by the gate until they came in or came out.
Do that enough times and you could talk to everyone.
That's what I want to do.
Stand at the gate of people doing business with AI

(06:27):
and talk to them, see what they do and why they do it.
If you know someone that's making an impact
in the world of AI, would you connect them with me?
You can find me on LinkedIn
or shoot me an email at [e-mail].
That's [e-mail].
Thanks for listening.