Stochastic Parrots, Policies, Octopi Who Pretend to Be Human, & Dancing Robots

Authors

  • Peter Appelbaum Arcadia University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14288/jaaacs.v16i1.198579

Keywords:

stochastic parrots, data, algorithms, politics of knowledge, Afrofuturism, artificial intelligence (AI), Chatbots, Educational Policy, More-than-Human, Synthetic Governance

Abstract

Amid hysteria over chatbots, image creators, and other AI encroachment, it is imperative to deal with data and algorithms taking on seemingly irreversible deterministic roles in educational policy, evaluation, and curriculum development. A lens of synthetic governance leads the focus from hyper-humanism to Afrofuturism. Finally, if we become more like the machines that we created in our image in a perpetually reinforcing cycle, then we can alternatively imagine new relationships by studying the very different relationships demonstrated by trees and oceans, plants, and other more-than-human beings on our planet.

Author Biography

Peter Appelbaum, Arcadia University

Peter Appelbaum is Professor of Education at Arcadia University. He has a doctorate from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in Educational Foundations, Policy and Administration, and Master's degrees in Curriculum & Psychological Studies (Michigan) and in Mathematics (ABD at Duke University). Dr. Appelbaum's focus areas in his doctoral work were in Diversity and Multicultural Education, Critical Feminist Studies, and Curriculum Theory.. He was a fellow at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Philadelphia for 2 years (Pscyhoanalysis & Education), a visiting research professor at the Freie Universität (Student Perspectives on Assessment) and at the Technische Universität Fulda (Intercultural Communication) in Germany, visiting Spencer Fellow at the University of Cape Town (Critical Multicultural Research Methods) in South Africa for two 3-month periods, is currently collaborating as a European Union Scholar in Ethnomathematics with the University of Thessalyin Greece, and as an International Expert in Assessment and Public Pedagogies with the University of Lyon in France.

Dr. Appelbaum's own doctoral dissertation later became his first book, Popular Culture, Educational Discourse and Mathematics (1995), which analyzed the ways that curriculum theory, ideology, and cultural trends support and transform power relations and social constructs across professional dialogue and public debates about education, even in the context of supposedly neutral subject areas such as mathematics. Later publications include Multicultural and Diversity Education: A reference handbook (2002); (Post) Modern Science (Education): Frustrations, propositions, and alternative paths (2001); Embracing Mathematics: On becoming a teacher and changing with mathematics (2008) - co-authored with Arcadia Graduate Students; and Children’s Books for Grown-up Teachers: Reading and writing curriculum theory (2009) - which was awarded the American Educational Research Association Outstanding Book Award for Curriculum Studies. He has published articles in journals such as the Journal of Curriculum Studies, Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, The Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, and For the Learning of Mathematics. He has been the President of the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, Chair or Program Chair of various research interest groups in Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies, Post-Colonial Research in Education, Queer Studies in Education, Gender and Education, Popular Culture and Public Pedagogies, a section editor for several curriculum studies journals, he is currently Vice President of the International Commission for the Study and Improvement of Mathematics Education, a plenary speaker at international curriculum theory and curriculum studies conferences and international mathematics education conferences, and a workshop leader for several international and global educational leadership programs. Dr. Appelbaum is also one of the founding members of the Arts-based Educational Research Group of the American Educational Research Association.

Data-automaton chasing a parrot-octopus

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Published

2024-02-21 — Updated on 2024-02-21

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 1 (2024): Algorithms, Data, and Curriculum Studies

Section

Articles

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Authors retain all rights to their work.