Irish Examiner view: List of AI disasters is a damning charge sheet
The many problems with AI includes its impact on the environment through the data centres, its threat to employment in many sectors, and the ethical concerns about its collection of data. Picture: iStock
As reported here yesterday by Jess Casey, the State Examinations Commission (SEC) has warned students against using artificial intelligence predictions on topics and questions which may appear in this year’s Leaving Certificate exams, which begin next week.
AI platforms claim to use data from past exams to predict this year’s questions, but the SEC has stated: “. . . any claims made about predictions on the subject matter of examination papers should be considered spurious whether generated through AI systems or otherwise.”
This is the latest in a growing list of AI catastrophes. Teachers at all levels of education have pointed out the difficulties in coping with AI-generated answers in classrooms and lecture theatres, but the problems stretch far beyond education.
In recent weeks, media organisation Mediahuis suspended the former head of its Irish media wing after he “wrongly put words into people’s mouths” through the use of AI, while a TD had to clarify his office’s use of AI in his correspondence.
Last month, 200 experts in childcare asked Google to restrict AI-generated videos for kids on YouTube and YouTube Kids, arguing that such AI slop was harmful to children. Meanwhile, controversy arose just last week when a regional winner of the prestigious Commonwealth short story prize was accused of using AI to write that winning entry.
For a technological innovation whose advocates point to increased efficiency as one of its advantages, that list of disasters is a damning charge sheet.
It does not include well-ventilated concerns about the impact of AI through the data centres necessary to power it, its threat to employment in many sectors, and the long-standing ethical concerns about its collection of data and information.
One of the biggest AI companies — OpenAI — has admitted that it does not expect to make a profit until at least 2030, while even the Pope has criticised AI, declaring in his first encyclical that it must be “disarmed” to stop it “dominating humanity”. It is baffling that this development is so frequently regarded with reverence and not ridicule.
A major child abuse scandal in France is being investigated currently, with police in Paris examining more than 100 allegations of mistreatment, physical violence, and rape of children as young as three by animateurs, or school monitors, during lunch breaks, nap times, and after-school activities.
The top prosecutor in the French capital, Laure Beccuau, said this week, “we have investigations under way in 84 preschools, about 20 primary schools and about 10 daycare centres”, which gives some indication of the extraordinary scale of this problem.
As often happens with such stories, the public focus unearths deeply concerning details.
Some parent groups have claimed that they raised concerns for years but were not taken seriously for years, adding that failures in the recruitment process and checking of school monitors had allowed abuse to continue.
In an Irish context it may be worth pointing to the role of those school monitors: These are adults in charge of children during lunch, breaks, and after-school activities. Sometimes they spend more time with children than teachers but they are not employed directly by schools or the education ministry.
They are instead recruited by local authorities, and it has emerged they are often employed without training or professional diplomas because the pressure to recruit staff is so great.
This could be seen as an ominous warning for the Irish education sector, where recruitment and retention of qualified staff have proved challenging for many years. In October 2024 Jess Casey reported here that a survey of primary schools found that almost 750 unqualified teachers had been employed in the first five weeks of the school term to cover short-term absences, for instance, although these instances are quite different to the role of French school monitors.
However, the situation in France, with untrained and unqualified staff taking care of children due partly to pressure to recruit, shows the potential for disaster when standards are not maintained.
Only properly trained staff with the appropriate qualifications should ever be entrusted with children.
The blast of heat we have experienced in recent days has had the usual effect on the Irish population. Not so much the mass outbreak of sunburn — which happens less now that we are better educated about the threat of skin cancer — but the sudden assumption of specialised knowledge by every citizen.
In other words, everyone’s a meteorologist.
For instance, readers will be familiar with the latest explanation for the scorching weather in recent days — the ‘heat dome’ currently over Europe.
As explained here by Imasha Costa, France’s national weather agency has said that the current high temperatures are due to a heat dome caused by hot air from Morocco, which is trapped under an area of high pressure.
The agency added that Europe could expect such events to “occur more and more often and earlier and earlier, and to be more and more intense”; computer modelling suggests that with June heatwaves about 10 times more likely in Europe than in the preindustrial era due to climate change, the same trend is now visible in May temperatures as well.
However, those French scientists should have simply consulted those amateur Irish meteorologists mentioned above for clarity on the cause of recent heat: our annual State exams looming ever closer, which have an uncanny habit of coinciding with clear skies and sunny spells.
We don’t call it “Leaving Cert weather” for nothing.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
