AI Thinks It Knows What I Like: Why Developing Self-Perception and Self-Efficacy at the Intermediate Level is So Important.

I don’t listen to Spotify. I don’t have streaming services.  I only use Amazon when I know exactly what I want to purchase.  Let me emphasize “know exactly what I want.”

Many algorithms exist and attempt to figure out who we are, even influence what we want, it’s really up to us, to know what we like.

Reading is like that.  Goodreads, Amazon, you name it, have a knack for telling us what we might be interested in. These lists are fun to scroll, but I think of my less-than-eager readers who rely on my book recommendations because I supposedly know what they are interested in.

I don’t.

I don’t because interests change and I can only make assumptions based on what I know about them, well, just like AI. More, it’s very easy for students to reject what I offer because they’re “not interested,” just like I do, when I look at what’s proposed and judge the cover.

Let me go back to Spotify. I don’t have the app. I don’t listen. By choice. It’s not because I am a curmudgeon and don’t want to move forward with technology. Ask me about DAT, FLAC, and why MP3 is a terrible medium. So it’s not that I don’t embrace technology, it's that Spotify doesn’t give me what I want.

Here’s what I mean. Say I want to listen to the Allman Brothers. Almost assuredly, One Way Out, Statesboro Blues, and Ramblin Man. Not long after, Spotify added Warren Haynes’ Soulshine and Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Midnight in Harlem. Here’s the thing, I love going to their concerts. I love the songs; I just don’t hear them. If you know the songs, the Allman Brothers Bands are upbeat. The latter two are not.  In fact, I generally only listen to Midnight in Harlem when I have the blues.  Statesboro Blues I’ll work out too. That’s a crazy swing of emotions.  What Spotify doesn’t seem to connect is that I want to listen to Statesboro Blues alongside Taj Mahal’s version and the original version by Blind Willie McTell.

If you think that’s bad?  Try being an Eric Clapton fan with over 1000 bootleg titles. Spotify loves to subject me to the song most dedicated Clapton fans find irritating: Wonderful Tonight.  Hence, I deleted the app.  My phone and CDs offer what I want when I want them.  Spotify and AI cannot.  It only gives people what algorithms know to be common, if not popular.  That’s just not who I am.

Struggling readers know this frustration. Reading doesn’t give them what they want.  We have to assume maturing readers want something from reading.  I say this because shame in reading emerges because students desire to be successful at something they love only to fail, which is why the shame associated with illiteracy and decoding struggles is so profound.

That’s not all.  Whether or not students have a specific reading comprehension difficulty, maturing readers often don’t know how to make a book give them what they want, other than entertainment, or passively reading for pleasure. Or in student language, “I like books that have a lot of action from the start.”  I guess students don’t understand how a book works or how they can be emotionally involved to make reading a beneficial experience.

Guess what? AI can’t do this either. AI operates on trends (assumed preferences) and known knowledge. Not emotions, depth of knowledge, or the nuanced preferences we have in life, let alone reading.

Reading is like music. A combination of things draws our attention, including genre, song structure, and the tales songs tell, namely love and heartbreak.  When students don’t understand the breadth and depth of genre, story structure, and evolution of characters, because they’ve learned reading is word recognition and retelling (or summarizing), they find reading absolutely painful. So students turn to what they know, what’s common, and most popular, i.e. Wimpy Kid, Dogma, and whatever else can be found in the book order which largely constitutes the shelves of Target and Walmart. I’m pretty sure an AI algorithm has already communicated the same thing. If AI can suggest our interests, because suggestions are common and popular, (see Spotify example above, why would students need to develop as readers?

Easy, AI does not take us deep. What do I mean?  I started listening to Eric Clapton in earnest about 2000. I was late to the game, knowing and enjoying Clapton mainly through his hits.  As I began collecting bootlegs of outtakes and learning about Clapton’s wide-ranging collaboration, I realized Clapton was more than a blues guitarist. He played reggae, orchestral music, jazz, and other genres. I’d know those genres, much like a student knows genres of fiction, but I never took the time to explore those musical genres. Within a short time, I’d adopted these genres and enjoyed them! Plus, I gained a greater affinity for different artists, many of whom I listen to today.

AI could not have done that for me, as evidenced by Spotify’s shallow depth of popular music.

I’m sure high school students, if not younger students, have already tried to ChatGPT what they might be interested in.  I’m sure they obtained an answer. Tragically, the result is surface-level, not indicative of what maturing readers could like.  Nor can AI teach this.

The responsibility, gratefully, falls on us.  It’s incumbent upon us then to spend time reading alongside our students. Be it conferring or talking with students about books at lunch. Perhaps it’s a small group, tier I classroom intervention, where we spend time looking at the qualities that make a story, characters, and conflicts, so students can learn associated reading processes that reveal features that make a book interesting. Just as infants and toddlers need the proximity of parents to read with them, we take on a similar role especially as society changes and executive functioning alters how our classrooms look.  It’s why we teach and won’t lose our jobs and careers to AI.

Again, AI cannot do that.  It’s a gift we have and it’s a critical aspect we need to keep in mind as our intermediate students inevitably move into the AI age. We can help students discover and foster their interests. Isn’t that a joy of teaching?