This article explores the hypothesis that in-depth transformation of education should combine the debunking of old myths and the creation of new myths. Following a brief overview of the many definitions of myth, the article looks into the myth of artificial intelligence and large language models championed by ChatGPT. It moves on to examine the opposite’ and recently developed myth of the stochastic parrot, incepted by the famous 2021 article ‘On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?’ authored by Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, and Margaret Mitchell. Analysing these myths, the article assesses the impact of demythologization and the impact of new mythologization in the context of scholarly research and education. It finds that the creation of new myths has the potential for development of critical consciousness and emancipation, confirms the hypothesis, and calls for development of ‘real-world’, impactful myths that have the power of social change.
ArkoudasK. (2023). ChatGPT is no Stochastic Parrot. But it also Claims that 1 is Greater than 1. Philosophy &. Technology, 36(54). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-023-00619-6.
BenderE. M., GebruT., McMillan-MajorA., & ShmitchellS. (2021). On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?FAcc T ‘21: Proceedings of the 2021 acm Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (pp. 610–623). https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922.
5.
BozkurtA., XiaoJ., LambertS., PazurekA., CromptonH., KoseogluS., FarrowR., BondM., NerantziC., HoneychurchS., BaliM., DronJ., MirK., StewartB., CostelloE., MasonJ., StrackeC. M., Romero-HallE., KoutropoulosA., ToqueroC. M., Singh, TliliL, A., LeeK., NicholsM., OssiannilssonE., BrownM., IrvineV., RaffaghelliJ. E., Santos-Hermosa, FarrellG, O., AdamT., ThongY. L., Sani-BozkurtS., SharmaR. C., HrastinskiS., & Jandrić, P. (2023). Speculative Futures on ChatGPT and Generative Artificial Intelligence (ai): A collective reflection from the educational landscape. Asian Journal of Distance Education, 18(1), 53–130. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7636568.
FullerS., & Jandrić, P. (2019). The Postdigital Human: Making the history of the future. Postdigital Science and Education, 1(1), 190–217. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-018-0003-x.
LarsonE. J. (2021). The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can't Think the Way We Do. Cambridge; MA: The Belknap Press.
17.
LiZ. (2023). The Dark Side of ChatGPT: Legal and Ethical Challenges from Stochastic Parrots and Hallucination. arXiv, 2304.14347v1. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2304.14347.
18.
LutzC., & Lutz FernandezA. (2010). Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and Its Effect on Our Lives. New York: St. Martin's Press.
MacfarlaneB. (2020). Myths about students in higher education: separating fact from folklore. Oxford Review of Education, 46(5), 534–548. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2020.1724086.
MurgiaE., PeraM. S., LandoniM., & HuibersT. (2023). Children on ChatGPT Readability in an Educational Context: Myth or Opportunity?umap ‘23 Adjunct: Adjunct Proceedings of the 31st acm Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (pp. 311–316). https://doi.org/10.1145/3563359.3596996.
25.
NataleS., & BallatoreA. (2020). Imagining the thinking machine: Technological myths and the rise of artificial intelligence. Convergence, 26(1), 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517715164.
PesapaneF., TantrigeP., PatellaF., BiondettiP., … & IerardiA. M. (2020). Myths and facts about artificial intelligence: why machineand deep-learning will not replace interventional radiologists. Medical Oncology, 37, 40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12032-020-01368-8.
WernickA. (1994). Vehicles for Myth: The Shifting Image of the Modern Car. In MaasikS. & SolomonJ. (Eds.), Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers (pp. 78–94). Boston: Bedford Books. https://xroads.virginia.edu/∼DRBR/wernick.html. Accessed 25 September 2023.
