Ep. 92 - My Take on Wellness, AI and Electric Cars

Recently, I've been approached by colleagues about various issues they've found or heard about. I appreciate that they come to me to see what I think. This is what a collegial workplace should look like.

One came and brought up the topic of wellness through cold plunging. Another brought up concerns about how AI will affect our classes. I constantly get challenged over the debate between electric and gas-powered cars. Still, another brought up the issue of cloud seeding.

I decided to share some thoughts around these topics (although I left out the cloud seeding part of the recording...maybe another time). I've always said that as teachers, we need to be ready with informed answers because we want to encourage our students to ask questions. I never want to shut down a good question nor placate it with a minimalist answer or simply tell them to go find out for themselves. I like to employ the "teach" part of my job title.

So here is a brief rundown on three of these topics from my point of view. I hope you think through YOUR answer to these issues. If you have opinions or knowledge that differs from mine, please reach out at [e-mail] and let's dialogue and allow me to learn from you.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Mmmm. Welcome back to Science threesixty. This is Tim Stevenson, your
host, and on this episode,I'm going to address a number of issues
that have been brought up to mefrom my colleagues at school, things that
were troubling them. They were curiousabout, maybe even worried about, and

(00:23):
I wanted to shed some of myinsight into them and see if my thoughts
might have a positive effect on yourthoughts. This podcast is a proud member
of the Teach Better Podcast Network,Better Today, Better Tomorrow, and the
podcast to Get You There. Exploremore podcasts at www dot Teach Better Podcastnetwork

(00:49):
dot com. Now let's get ontothe episode. You that I was approached
on was the issue of wellness,and in this case came up with regard
to cold plunging. Somebody had beentelling me at school how they had been
getting into cold plunging and was wonderingif I knew anything about this, And

(01:11):
you know, I think I seethat it falls under this broad category of
wellness. And I've been reading andlistening to podcasts a lot about wellness in
the last year or more. It'sbecome a theme that, you know,
really over the last few years,people have been very concerned about mental health
people who have been concerned about physicalhealth, physical fitness. So what have

(01:34):
I done and one of some ofthe things that I think about with regard
to wellness, with regard to cold, plunging, vitamins, exercise well.
To me, I've found that theroad to wellness is rife with remedies that

(02:04):
are at everybody's fingertip. Okay,for example, walking in the woods,
going for a walk in nature,you know that there are these molecules that
are emitted by trees called fight insides. These are defense mechanisms. The trees
use them to ward off pests anddisease. You'll know them by the scent

(02:30):
of a pine tree, a cedartree. These things that we find pleasantly
aromatic are fighting sides that have beenfound to support immunity and mental health in
humans. I've even read the reportwhere one hour spent breathing in the air

(02:50):
of a forest boosts your immune systemfor thirty days. At it, look
into it. These are the sortof thing that I dangle as prompt to
you to look into fight insides.Is it true that spending one hour in
the forest will boost my immune system? Thirty days? Are you prone to

(03:16):
every cold that comes around. Doyou find yourself at home with the sniffles
and the chills and aches and painsof a fever? Well, compare that
answer to the amount of time youspend walking around in nature, or conversely,
do you find most of your timespent indoors under fluorescent light, sitting

(03:40):
stationary, sedentary? Consider first ofall, getting up and moving and do
so outdoors as much as possible.And the other benefit from being outside is
your exposure to sunlight. Vitamin Dis very closely related as well to a
strong immune system as well as mentalhealth, including heart health, bone health,

(04:08):
muscle health. Vitamin D seems tobe one of these vitamins that has
sort of a little bit of abenefit to many many things. So get
out in the sun. The UVradiation, in fact, UVB has this
ability to convert a certain form ofcholesterol that's naturally found in your skin into

(04:30):
vitamin D. So when people saygo outside and get your vitamin D,
it's not that the sun is sendingyou vitamin D. What it is doing
is it's sending you UV radiation,which is used as a catalyst to convert
one molecule into another. And oncethat vitamin D is in you, in
particular vitamin D three, it goesto work and it brings you benefits in

(04:51):
all sorts of ways. I encourageyou spend some time researching the chemical process
of UVB radiation, doing this workin your body. Spend some time in
the sun. We spend so muchtime indoors that we lose the benefit of

(05:12):
this vitamin because we're not exposed tothe sun. So when somebody says to
me, what are you doing forwellness? Well, first of all,
I'm out in the woods and I'mwalking regularly, regularly, I'm out in
the sunshine, exposing myself to thisradiation that is beneficial. It improves my
vitamin D levels. And I'm takingmy classes outside as well, and I'm

(05:36):
talking to them about these things,and I'm telling them, if you're that
person who's run down, who's mentallyfatigued, who catches every bug that goes
around, well, here's two simplethings that you can do. And now
about this one. Sleep. Peoplekind of laugh at me when I say
that I'm in bed, lights outby nine point thirty every night, many

(06:00):
times, and usually on weekends aswell. I aim for a minimum eight
hours of sleep every every night.There were times in your life, probably
my life, many people where webrag about our ability to pull the all
nighters. No, that is thatis not a wise thing to do.

(06:24):
It leaves you mentally dull, Itleaves you open to infection. It has
effect on your cardiovascular system, yourheart health. You need sleep, and
people need to be putting away thephones. We put away our phones.
We we they go on to sleepmode about half an hour before I go

(06:47):
to bed, and we will readbook, you know, book words on
paper, no backlit screen, andand we've all asleep, and we stay
in bed and we get our eighthours. And I'm up by six o'clock
every morning. I'm out of bedby six o'clock. And if I'm in

(07:08):
bed by nine, that's nine hours. And I'm usually asleep for a good
eight of those. And this isvery important. So this is this is
a simple remedy, simple medicine.The other thing that will related to the
sleep thing is is a diet.You know, is your food coming out

(07:30):
of a box. If it's comingout of a box, it's heavily processed.
I'm very fortunate my wife, Cherylis a fantastic cook and has all
kinds of great foods. She doesa great job. I come home from
school and I smell dinner cooking,and I just think the good Lord above
that my wife is such a goodcook. And it smells good and it

(07:51):
tastes good. And will generally havea small glass of red wine with dinner,
and we enjoy our company, andwe talk about what podcasts we've listened
to that day, and what haveyou learned? What have I learned?
And who have you listened to?And it's just it's just good conversation and
good food, and it's good foryour soul and it's good for your health.

(08:13):
And we have we have lots ofvegetables, lots of red peppers,
yellow peppers, lots of deep green, leafy greens. We have oftentimes I
don't even really know, honestly,I should be actually have charelier telling me
like the amount of like vegetables accountfor forty to fifty percent of my plate.

(08:37):
I do like my protein. Ilove a good beef dish, I
love good chicken. I love fish. But you know what happens is when
at the end of the meal,which is usually around six to six thirty
I don't eat again. I don'teat till the next morning. That's then
what that means is that's twelve hoursthat I don't eat. The only thing

(08:58):
I'll consume between six thirty pm andsix thirty am is water. And this
is something I've done for a longlong time. It helps to keep my
weight down. It prevents me fromthat sort of late night snacking. And
honestly, when I feel that hunger, if I do, I down an
eight ounce glass of water, andthat water fills up my stomach and I

(09:20):
don't feel hungry. And it's discipline, but it's good for me, and
I do it and I'm well.I don't take sick days, I don't
catch every bug that goes around.And then in the morning when I do
eat, I'll always have fruit smoothie. I have mixed berries, lots of
blue and red berries with the antioxidants. I'll always put in two heaping scoops

(09:46):
of a plant based protein powder withGreek yogurt, and I'll also shred up
some spinach and I blend that upand I'll drink that. I'll always take
a vitamin D three pill, whichis slower absorbing than getting it directly from
the UV radiation I speaking about earlierwith being exposed to the sun. But

(10:11):
I do take a supplement, avitamin D supplement twenty five hundred units.
I'm told that you could go upto five thousand units and be fine.
But I'm not a doctor and I'mcertainly not going to prescribe anything. But
I take twenty five hundred units aday of D three with my protein powder
fruit smoothie. And then I'll haveone egg, no toast, just the
egg fried. I'll fry an eggand I'll just eat it like that,

(10:33):
and off I go with a cupof coffee, just black. I drink
black coffee. I don't put creamand sugar in it. And off I
go. And I bring to work. Oftentimes it's pean, a butter and
honey sandwich, to be honest.But often there's leftovers from dinner last night,
and I'll pack up always a carrot, always an apples. I'll cut

(10:54):
up some red peppers, and I'mthinking about how I'm fueling my body.
I avoid sugary drinks. I reallydon't. I haven't drank a coke and
I don't know how long. Sothis is what I do. And so
when people when you know, whensomebody calls me up and says, are
you into cold plunging? What doyou do for wellness? And this is
what happened the other day with ateacher friend of mine. They're thinking about

(11:16):
wellness, and everybody should be thinkingabout wellness. I get into the gym
three times a week. I do. I do weight resistance training. I'm
not a bodybuilder, but I dopush weights. It's good for my bones,
it's good for my muscle mass.Greater muscle mass, burns more calories,
it keeps my metabolism up as Iage. I do this stuff.

(11:37):
I'll sit on the stationary bike andthen we'll always go for these walks in
the forest to five six kilometers tothe forest. We'll do that every weekend.
And then that allows us to enjoyhiking in the summer and our big
lung kayak adventures. This is myremedy for wellness. It's not a prescription.

(11:58):
It's not a drug. Pharmaceuticals areover prescribed. Again, I'm not
a doctor, so I can't talkto your situation. But these are things
that everybody can do. What Ijust listed in and honestly, just recently
I have done some research into coldplunging and I have tried it. I
found that the water coming out ofmy cold water tap in the bathtub is

(12:20):
ten degrees celsius. And I'll tellyou something that water ten degrees celsius is
a challenge. Getting into that ishard, but that's sort of the point
of it. It builds your mentaltoughness. It does something about activating brown
fat mitochondria. I don't know alot about that, but I'm doing some
research into it, and apparently itraises your metabolism, it helps with weight

(12:43):
control, and it does have abeneficial effect in your sympathetic and your parasympathetic
nervous system. Do some research intoSusannah Soberg. She's a Danish researcher who's
done all kinds of work with thisin this field. Recently on a podcast
with Mark Kuberman. Listen to thesethings and do you listen to two podcasts

(13:05):
if you want to continue the discussionabout wellness. Are you listening to podcasts?
Are you doing something for your mind? Are you learning things? And
I regularly listen to Simon Sinek,I listen to Mark Huberman, Jordan Harbinger,
Rich Role Alan Alda just off thetop of my head. Those are

(13:26):
the ones I regularly tune into,and I see who they have on I
listen. I see who their guestsare and what their topic of discussion is,
and if it meets my areas ofinterest, I'll listen. And sometimes
these are long form, form,long format podcasts where they're two and a
half even sometimes pushing three hours long. And people will say to me,

(13:48):
when do you have time to listento that? Well, when do you
have time to be healthy? Whendo you have time to push your mind
to grow? As as a teacher, as an educator, when are you
learning? Well? I do itin the car. And so if I
find a particular topic, a particularepisode that I'm really interested in and somebody

(14:09):
is an expert it. These areworld class people who I would have to
pay to listen to if I wasgoing to see them live, but they
give all of their information for freeon podcasts. And if it's a three
hour podcast and I've got a halfhour commute, well then I guess it's
three days that I'm listening to thatinterview half an hour two and from school
for three days. That's three hours. And I learn and it influences the

(14:31):
way I think. It influences whatI know, It influences what I teach,
and it influences my health and mywellness and my well being. It
gives me topics of conversation when I'mmeeting with people in dinner parties, when
I'm sitting at home with my wife, I want, I'm talking with my

(14:52):
kids, I have things to talkabout. When people come up to me
and say, hey, Tim,have you ever done a cold plunging?
And I'll say, yeah, actually, I was just listening to him podcast
talking all about the science behind thebenefits of cold plunging. Here, listen
to it yourself and we can havea discussion. Well, let's meet for
lunch next week. You know,this is how you continue your growth pattern.
And none of these things are areprescriptions. They're not I don't go

(15:15):
to the pharmacy for any of thisstuff. I just take advantage of what
nature has offered me for free,good sleep, good nutrition. I avoid
the process foods, I exercise weightresistance, I get outdoors, into the
sunshine, into the forest. Ilearn, and then I surround myself with

(15:41):
people who are interested in having discussionsabout these sort of things and the end
result, I feel pretty good andI'm happy about that. The old E
versus ice, that is, electricvehicle versus in the internal combustion engine.

(16:06):
What's better for the environment, really, the electric car or the traditional gas
powered, diesel powered, fossil fuelburning car. Well, I'll often hear
this question brought up because I've beendriving ev since twenty sixteen. In that
year, I purchased a used NissanLeaf. It already had about thirty five

(16:27):
thousand kilometers on it. I droveit until it had one hundred and seventy
thousand kilometers. It then got soldto a fellow out in Alberta who drove
out here, believe it or not, in a truck, a gas burning
truck, and towed it back toAlberta on a trailer to continue driving it
in his hometown. And I replacedthe twenty twenty thirteen Nissan Leaf with a

(16:52):
twenty twenty three Tesla Model three Standardrange, two wheel drive. I've I
got great incentives from the government.I got five thousand dollars rebate from the
federal government of Canada. I gotanother four thousand rebate from the province of
British Columbia. So nine thousand dollarsoff a car that was already on sale.

(17:18):
I thought it was a pretty gooddeal and it was the right time
in terms of the mileage on myleaf. And so as a result of
driving electrics since twenty sixteen, i'masked this question often. Don't you think
that electric cars and their lithium batteriesare far worse for the environment than gas
cars? Well, here's what Isay. First of all, did you

(17:45):
want to just stay status quo?Is that really the answer that you're coming
up with? Is that really thealternative? So you're saying don't drive ev
because you've heard some story about lithiummining or some story about battery going to
landfill and leaching heavy metals into thewater. I don't know something of that
nature, and therefore stick with gasand diesel. Is there no thought of

(18:15):
progression and moving forward into the futurein terms of new technologies? Is there
not a better way to do things? Are we not even open to the
idea of a better way to dothings? Now? If you live in
certain regions of say Canada, whereI live, there's regions of the country

(18:38):
where the climate is really cold.There's parts of Canada, where it's dark
much of the year, especially duringthe winter time. I don't know that
I would want to rely on anelectric vehicle just yet. I think probably
I would drive a diesel truck ifI was in those areas. The thing

(18:59):
that I'll always say is, yes, where you can switch to electric,
you should switch to electric. Ifyou can switch to electric, you should
switch to electric. The emissions ofan electric car during this operation are zero.
Now, hold on, I knowwhat you're going to say. What

(19:21):
about the electricity production that I'm chargingthe car with. Okay, that's definitely
an issue if I just moved theemissions from my car upstream to the coal
fire generating plant, and I supposethat's a possibility. However, coal production

(19:42):
coal fired electricity is on the decline. Do some of that research. My
advice is to use this as ajumping off point for say a science class.
What countries around the world are lookingto reduce their usage of co for
energy production. There's definitely countries inthe world where that decline has not really

(20:04):
been evident, but other countries likeCanada has shown a significant effort to reduce
their dependence on coal for electricity.Certainly in Canada, there's a large push
towards solar, wind and hydropower,and so when I plug my car in,

(20:25):
it's coming from a grid that Ibelieve ninety five percent hydro electricity.
And so there really isn't a largecarbon footprint. Now, as an addendum,
perhaps you would ask your class let'slook into the carbon footprint of the
concrete industry. Concrete industry is,of course heavily invested in building dams,

(20:48):
and they do have a very highcarbon footprint. However, these issues concrete,
coal coals on the decline. Youknow, concrete, when you're building
a damn, what's is poured,It's poured. You know, there's got
to be an aspect of the lesserof two evils. There's no doubt we

(21:15):
live in a society. You know, we live in a planet with eight
billion people and rising. Some sayit will climb to about nine and a
half billion and then decline. Ifyou're interested in an interesting study with your
students, do it. Do alittle investigation into birth rate versus death rate,

(21:37):
and you will find that in manyFirst world countries the birth rate is
less than the death rate. Andwhy is that that countries are people in
countries around the world, Japan,for example. Is this candidates like this,
what's going on that people aren't havingchildren? Is it an economic reason?
Is it a social pressures? Isthe desire to advance your career and

(22:03):
your education? Is it because you'reworried about the future. I want to
get into that in a little bit, you know, is there a future
for your children? That kind ofthing. But the population is high,
and even if it gets to nineto ten billion people, we're going to
need power. I mean, thereality is we're not going to go back

(22:26):
to the caves. We're not goingto continue you know, we're not going
to regress. We're going to haveto keep powering our lives somehow. So
can we do it in as cleanand sustainable way as possible? I myself
have gone ahead and put ten thousandwatts of solar panels on the roof of
my house. Again thanks to avery large grant from the government of Canada.

(22:51):
They helped to pay for these panels, and as a result, I'm
generating more power for most months ofthe year and I use. So what
I don't use is being sent backto the grid. Now would what would
it be like? I live ina neighborhood with sixty one houses. It
was built about six years ago.What would it be like if every house

(23:11):
in this neighborhood put up solar ontheir roofs. We would all be producing
more power than we use and thensending it back to the grid. So
this idea of local production of energyis the way I would like to see
things start to go. Yeah,I don't really want our province of British

(23:32):
Columbia or places around the world tocontinue in these massive dam projects, no
doubt. When you look into itcarbon the carbon footprint of the concrete industry
is massive, and the damming ofrivers is an ecological disaster. If you
think about the migration of fish andflooding of land, displacement of animals and

(23:53):
habitat, reduction of biodiversity because ofthe flooding, these things are ecological disasters.
So I don't want to see it. But what I do want to
see is I want to see houseseverywhere with solar. Take a look at
the incentives given by the country youlive in. Is there a financial value

(24:15):
to putting solar on your roof?And in Canada, the Real Estate Board
has said that there's a one hundredand fifty percent increase in your real estate
value. So for instance, ifyou spent say twenty thousand dollars on solar
panels, the value for home yourhome is your resale value is gone to

(24:36):
thirty thousand, So it is aninvestment at your home. Certainly is an
attractive thing for a new home buyerto come in and say, oh,
look at this house generates its ownpower. So I'm not going to have
an electricity bill, or certainly ifI do, it will be very minimal.
So staying on the electric car thing, I do think that if people
will switch to electric where they can, I know that I'm not going to

(25:00):
see electric cargo cargo, the bigcontainer ships crossing the ocean. I don't
think we're going to see those electrifiedanytime too soon. Certainly, I don't
expect to get onto a Boeing Tripleseven and fly to Korea and you know
electric These are going to be jetfuel diesel fuel burning transportations for a long

(25:22):
time to come. Certainly, inthe farming industry, you could see some
electrification of some pieces of farm equipment, but within the say the town I
live. You know why is thetownship that I'm living in not fully electrified
when it comes to their gardening equipment. Why do I still see township workers
trimming township hedges with gas powered trimmers? Why are they not electric? Like

(25:48):
that's the sort of thing that canbe switched so where it can be switched
it, but let's be realistic.I mean, I'm realistic. If it
can't be switched out, don't worryabout switching it out, but certainly in
the areas that it can. Forinstance, I'll regularly see the township truck
drive into my neighborhood to empty communitygarbage cans. And as this guy gets

(26:12):
out of his truck to change thegarbage, he just leaves his diesel truck
running and he walks over. Hetakes his time, and he unpacks his
plastic garbage bag. And you knowwhat's in that garbage bag. How much
of it could have been recycling,And it's just you know, this throwaway
mentality, and oh, don't worry, a truck will come along and just
take it away. But where where'sa way, you know, like it's

(26:34):
just going to go somewhere, it'sjust going to leave your neighborhood. So
it beautifies your backyard, but ityou know, pollutes somebody else's. So
this idea that we can just sortof out of sight, out of mind.
There has to be a mentality towardsconservation, towards carbon footprint, towards
conserving where you can conserve, switchingto electric where you can switch to electric,

(26:57):
Put solar on home, take thepressure off of the grid so that
we're not having to build more hydroelectricdams, reduce our dependency on coal and
natural gas for electricity prorection. Youknow, start to see more wind farms

(27:17):
put up where wind farms make sense, solar farms where solar farms make sense.
All of these things just make sensebecause we're moving, you know,
we're moving forward. We're not goingto move backwards. And forward is going
to be an era of conservation.And when we're in an era where you

(27:38):
know, forest fires are worse thanthey've ever been, Drought exists here,
flooding and monsoons happen there. We'reseeing atmospheric rivers dumping water at unprecedented rates
where they never have before. We'reseeing heat domes that are caused you know,

(28:00):
all kinds of havoc to the naturalwilderness and evaporating water. We're seeing
ocean temperatures higher than we've ever seen, and look, people, there's clearly
lots of reasons why we need tothink about our energy production and the weather

(28:22):
we see on a regular basis is. If that's not obvious enough for you,
then I'm not sure what is soanyway to sum up when it comes
to electric Yeah, I drive electric, and I think everybody should where they
can drive electric. I think thatthe move should be the shift should be
towards electric. That does not meanthat I think there should be a mandate.

(28:47):
I don't think that there should bea mandate that everybody is mandated to
drive electric. But as cars ageout, if you own a five year
old gas powered Honda, in tenyears, when that cars on his last
leg and you're thinking about replacing it, I seriously hope that there's an electric
car in the marketplace that you're interestedin and you'd consider switching it out to

(29:10):
This won't happen overnight. I believethat there's two billion cars registered private cars
in the world, and I thinkon average it takes about twenty years to
switch them out. And so theelectric car revolution has sort of just begun
in the last ten years, Somaybe it'll be another ten years and we'll

(29:32):
see a much larger percentage of carsbeing electric, and that would be my
hope. Artificial intelligence chat GPT andthe like OpenAI, dot com, grock

(29:52):
there's now the way I look atit is. For instance, I was
having a conversation with a call school, a different colleague this time, who
was saying that AI came on thescene and we didn't even ask for it.
In fact, when chat GPT wasfirst being discussed in the fall of

(30:15):
probably twenty twenty two, people didn'teven see it coming. Just all of
a sudden there was and for thefirst few months we were all saying,
like, what even is this?What are you supposed to do with it?
And in schools the first question was, well, how are we going
to use this in school? Allof a sudden, the essay, for

(30:36):
instance, is out of you.You can't assign an essay anymore because you
can just have AI write one foryou. I know that. In my
class, we set up two computersside by side and I asked two students
simultaneously to use chat GPT to writean essay on Neil Armstrong and they posed

(30:57):
the same prompt, then hit enterand watched as these two computers wrote essays
on Neil Armstrong. But they weren'tthe identical essays. So it wasn't like
chat GPT said, Oh, I'mgoing to pull up my Neil Armstrong essay.
No, it wrote two completely differentessays and in different kind of tone
as well. It was very impressive. Actually. I then heard Peter Diamandis

(31:22):
talk about AI and in such away as to say the new technologies force
old habits to become better. Soalthough there was a time, for instance,
when lab reports, essays, researchpapers, master's theses, these were

(31:48):
standard fare for higher education, it'salmost like the right of passage. Have
you written your two thousand word essay? Well, have you written your ten
thousand word essay? Because these aresort of the walking over the proverbial coals
to achieve the levels of education thatyou feel that you want. But now

(32:08):
with this sort of technology, youhave to ask yourself, why do we
have essays, why do we haveto write lab reports? And there's all
kinds of opportunity to debate these things. I heard another AI expert, doctor
Tim Daisy, talk about AI,such as perhaps now the AI prompt can

(32:34):
be to write the first paragraph ofyour essay and to get you started,
maybe write the first page, maybewrite the first two hundred and fifty words
of your essay to get you started, and then you take it from there.
But you learn to ask good questions. And this is something that I
see is a great value is itforces us to learn how to ask good

(32:54):
questions to get the information you want. So, for example, if you've
experimented with chad GPT, question youask it usually doesn't give you the answer
you're looking for. It doesn't giveyou the detail you're interested in. You
have to go back and ask itdeeper questions. I know for myself when
I use it for research, whichis predominantly how I've been using it,

(33:14):
and I have been using it alot, I'll ask it multiple questions.
I'll literally have a conversation with myAI, asking it more and more questions
and allowing every answer that it givesme to prompt the next question, and
I get deeper and deeper understanding,and it leads me to more and more
information. And I've found it tobe an invaluable tool as a teacher to

(33:39):
further my knowledge in fact I've learnedthings that I've actually been teaching incorrectly.
It will derive formulas for me,it will it'll explain historical events. It's
been invaluable. I use it allthe time. I demonstrate in front of

(34:00):
my students all the time. AI. I'll open up chat GPT in front
of them and say, this isn'tyou know? Okay, somebody brings up
a topic of a particular like,for instance, you know you take the
planets Uranus and Neptune. These arethe two discovered planets, Whereas for all
of antiquity, we've known about Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and

(34:21):
Saturday because we can see them.But Uranus and Neptune had to be discovered.
Well, there's all kinds of interestingstories about how they were discovered,
and if you ask AI enough questions, it'll tell you that people involved in
the events and what telescope was used, and what led them to be suspicious
that there was a planet beyond Uranus, and and we just learned. It's

(34:45):
just a beautiful thing. It's likeyour own personal tutor in your back pocket.
And so in that way, Ithink it's a fantastic addition to our
education system, and I encourage it. Holly, the problem of cheating.
I don't think that chat GPT inventedcheating. I think cheating has been around

(35:06):
for centuries. I think that weare people bent on the easy way out,
and if I can buy it.You know, there's been essay writing
websites. I can you know foryears, I've been able to pay somebody
to write me an essay. Ican even ask them to write it with
spelling mistakes. So chat GPT isjust a modern version of what's always been

(35:30):
done. Maybe we just need todo things differently. And this is a
time when teachers need to band togetherand say how can we use this effectively
because the kids will be using thistool moving forward beyond high school, beyond
where the word cheat is a commonterm. So maybe maybe it's to be

(35:57):
used in Maybe I do want towrite an essay for me. Maybe I
do wanted to analyze a chemical reactionfor an analysis and a lab report.
And then what I'm asked to dois read what the AI came up with
and critique it, and I becomethe marker of AI, and I perhaps

(36:21):
look at the content and see whatfurther questions are necessary to get to a
greater level of understanding. You see. But I'm just brainstorming by myself.
But how would it be if therewas a group of five or six of
us around the table and saying,how are you using how are you using
it? Without a doubt? Thereare some tools coming on the scene right

(36:42):
now that are have many people worried. I can think of. You know,
we're not going to need artists.We'll always need artists, But I
mean the art. Look at theartwork that can be created. The artwork
I put on the valve of mykayak was generated by an AI. I
gave us some prompts about what Iwas interested in, and it gave me

(37:04):
exactly what I wanted. I printedit on a sticker and I stuck it
on and it looks beautiful. Nowyou're seeing such lifelike video. These are
literally people who don't exist, yetthey look exactly real, with human voices
and detailed like. It's not ananimation. It's literally like a video.
If I was in the advertising agency, I would be employing AI to do

(37:28):
all my car commercials. I wouldnever use need to use airplanes or helicopters
or drones because I can just createthe AI generated image of the car driving
down the road, and yeah,it's unbelievable what's going on. But again
the teacher approached me and said,you know, this is something we should
be worried about. What do youthink. I'm kind of scared about this.

(37:50):
What is this going to do toour education system? But we've got
to band together and start looking atsolutions, things that we can do as
an educating community that would use thisto the benefit of what we're trying to
do, which really is to produceyoung people to be positively contributing members of

(38:14):
society who understand the nuance of knowledgeand can process and analyze the world around
them, the political comments, theenvironmental debates, the energy sources, the
societal pressures we have from geopolitical conflict. This is what we need. We

(38:42):
need people who are compassionate and friendlyand willing to help and be generous with
their time and their talents. Thisis what we want from our citizens that
we put out of high schools.I don't need somebody to pass a test
anymore in order to prove that they'regoing to be a valuable member of society.

(39:07):
Think about that for a moment.Do We really need to continue having
final exams where there's standardized tests,where there's you know, standards of knowledge
that we think, if you knowthis like I do, then you'll be
just as good of a person asI am. These sort of egocentric notions

(39:29):
that where the purveyors of knowledge andwe've set the standard as teachers and we
know best, and if you meetmy standard, then you two can pass
this gate into society like those daysI think are diminishing, and they really
they should. We need to,you know, draw more from our people,
our student body, and understand thatas contributors to society. There's far

(39:58):
far more than and understanding the quadraticequation, far far more than memorizing dates
of history. But this is adebate, This is a discussion, This
is a collaboration that needs to takeplace, and it needs to involve more
than just teachers. And AI ispushing us in that direction, is forcing

(40:22):
our hand, it's forcing us tobe better, and I'm all for it
to finalize. Have you heard ofsomething called quorum sensing. Quorum sensing is
something of a communication mechanism that bacteriauses when there's a dense enough population.

(40:49):
It's used to sort of regulate theirbehavior, they start to behave on mass
almost as one. I like tothink of society having the ability to do
quorum sensing as well, and I'dlike to think that I'm a part of
that movement. For instance, justthis discussion in and of itself. If

(41:10):
you've been listening to this and you'reat this point, you're part of it.
Also, the idea that if enoughpeople start thinking positively about opportunity,
about possibility, without fear of thefuture, but thinking about how the future
is going to evolve. The technologyhas always evolved. How can we harness

(41:32):
the technology to our benefit. Howcan we grow with it, advanced society
with it, advanced education with it, work with it rather than run from
it. Then where we're going tochange the world for the better if there's
enough people thinking about how there's certainaspects of what you might call epi knowledge,

(41:57):
kind of the knowledge above the knowledge, the the ability to see the
world for its possibilities, not tosee what's happening as items of fear.
I almost feel sometimes that over thelast few years, fear has been the
motivating factor. I think of somethingmy son Jackson said a month or two

(42:20):
ago where he said he said,I think that the agendas of the powers
that be have been pushed so hardthat people are starting to push back and
saying, no, enough enough ofthat, because we don't want to live
in fear. You know, Iheard somebody say when he live, when
recounting all the conspiracy theories of theworld, the person simply said, how

(42:43):
can you live like that? Howcan you live constantly worried that someone's out
to get you? You know,healthy skepticism is probably a good thing,
but to be to the point ofparanoia is not healthy. You know,
my mother said recently, how whenback in the forties, when London was

(43:09):
being bombed and Churchill was rallying thenation, it was a time when we
were fighting a tyrant who is tryingto take over the world and killing entire
societies of people. How could beany worse than that? Yet people talk

(43:34):
about today like we've never seen suchcalamity. Believe me, the world has
seen calamity in the past, andyou know what, there's nothing new under
the sun. It didn't Solomon writethat at one point one of the wisest
men of all time. The truthof the matter is, if all of
us start thinking positively, and allof us start thinking collectively towards the positive

(43:59):
good of people and looking at whatthe world has to offer as something that's
going to benefit us all. ThenI think we're going to create a movement
as called quorum sensing. I thinkit's going to be an aspect of something
beyond the five senses, something thatwe don't know exactly where it's coming from,

(44:21):
but we just know that it's movingin a way that's going to make
it better for all of us.I like to think that it's the way
it's going to be, So Iencourage you also to think that way.
Treat yourself well, continue to learn, continue to research, continue to ask
the questions. Don't intentionally butt upagainst dead ends, pushed through the barriers,

(44:46):
ask the good questions, have thedebates respectfully, and move society forward
in the best way you possibly can. And what better way to do so?
Then? As a teacher, Sothat was my episode for today,
I just really wanted to say allthese things because I kept getting asked these

(45:08):
questions from colleagues about really all thesethings that are maybe seen as societal ills,
but perhaps are actually impetus for growthand explosion. Of possibility and positivity.
That's the way I'd like to thinkof it, and it's a message

(45:28):
I'd like to spread around the world. If you agree with me, I'd
love to hear from you. I'dlove for you to message me at astro
Stevenson eleven at gmail dot com,connect with me through Instagram at astro Stevenson.
Just send me a direct message ifyou have comments or comments or questions

(45:49):
or just something you want to addto the discussion. I wish we could
all just sit down together in thesame room and have this conversation. But
let's see, let's see what thefeedback is on this podcast, and we'll
go from there. But to allof you, I wish you well,
I wish you good health. Iwish you positive thoughts in the way you

(46:10):
think and in the way you approachwhat the world has to offer. And
spread that message to your students aswell, because then it's going to just
amplify you. Remember you told twopeople, then they told two people,
and so on and so on andso on. It's called the exponential effect.
Let's grow exponentially everybody in a positiveway. I have a great day,

(46:30):
have a great week, look forwardto talk to you again on episode
ninety three, Bye for now.