welcome to the link podcast brought to you by the school of health education policing and Sciences at Staffordshire University the link is created by staff students and healthc Care Professionals which includes related topics discussions interviews and lived [Music] experiences hello and welcome to another episode of the link podcast and today we are venturing into the world of AI this has been been quite a journey with AI in recent years and as I've just been saying off Mike there seems to be as much excitement as there is fear with its use and how it's being used and the applications of its use to the point where we're still really not sure how to use it when to use it and in what circumstances and certainly in University what constitutes us using it in a good way and what would constitute and using it in a way that might get you into trouble in particular though what we're talking about today is our Journeys with using Ai and how I've been using it and how it's helped me also from a neurodiverse point of view as well and we have a very special guest today and we have Craig Smith I'll let him formally introduce himself he is doing some fantastic things with AI in different sectors but mainly to assist in executive function so that's what we're going to talk about today hi Craig thank you so much all the way from Australia so we're very happy that you uh we were able to get this in as soon as possible and we found you through a TED talk so yeah would you like to introduce yourself yeah thank you so much so I'm Craig I'm based in Australia and I work for an organization called positive Partnerships we're a federally funded project we run autism education workshops uh for families and for schools across Australia uh and I've been a school teacher for about 20 years years and I've mostly worked in autism education for that time and prior to that I was a pipe organist but now I'm firmly in the world of autism education wonderful wow quite the Accolade and to being teaching as well so when you were in education what kind of years were you looking after yeah I mostly taught Primary School aged children who for us in here in Australia that would be anywhere between say 5 years of age to 12 I'd say uh that was the main cohort that I worked with and I sort of cut my teeth in teaching on that age of a student and uh yeah absolutely loved it from the start wonderful so um I think we'll go back to the very beginning then as I said Kirsty and I have discovered you basically through your Ted Talk which was really really interesting and all these links by the way guys as normal we we'll construct and put in the show notes uh so you can go go ahead and watch that what got you to that point in time where you started to realize that this was something special here with AI yeah I think I've always been really interested in what technology can do to support accessibility I'd say for the past 10 or 12 years I've just always been interested in what's available to support leveling the playing field you know like I I've been really interested in mobile tech technology like iPads for years I was really interested when interactive whiteboards first came into classrooms I remember those one of remember those yeah it was a real you know it was this shift from blackboards to interactive whiteboards and at the time I was like wow you can show movies to students now and you can like uh draw over images and annotate things and and even at that time it was like I was really interested in how how is this not just another piece of Cool Tech and another maybe teaching tool but what are the accessibility implications and I think that's that's what still has been the conversation for me with artificial intelligence is I mean there's so much noise around AI you know wherever you look someone's doing something with AI and there's a lot of positivity and there's a lot of push back for me I'm very very interested in again what can it do to level things out and provide support and accessibility guidance to people who really need it and particularly for me for students who need it and for adults who are neurod Divergent who can utilize this as part of their work and their daily life absolutely and one of the things I really liked you've got a really good working knowledge of the I guess the issues want of a better term some would coin them as well part of us that is actually makes us really really good at things as well almost well we were designed our brain uh wiring and how we are like ADHD autism our society did need many many different wirings of brains you know for it to function like different cogs in a machine and I was talking to this about student hence why I was going down this this line and because they were getting quite upset about their NE Divergence that is not uncommon as you'll know yourself Craig as well but there is a lot of Shame and and guilt and yeah wanting to hide away and wishing that they weren't this way and I always get quite upset about that because there was a time in our history where this was massively beneficial you know and and what it is now is more that the way society's changed and the constructs and what is required of us as human beings has changed and our brains haven't because just like losing our tail um that's takes a really really really really really long time so one of the areas that we really struggle in particularly in Academia and in uh what I like to call adulting is executive function and you describe it really well as like this uh limited space um which can be different from person to person with different Divergence that means that planning committee you had it like different um imagine different departments uh that were to do with organizing and planning and prepping and prioritizing that's the areas where we really struggle and particularly keeping things in our working memory and there's a finite space where it will soon fill up and it it drains quickly and um I thought that was really inventive and one of the things Jessica mccab from how to ADHD talks about is automate or delegate and that's also Eric tivers from ADHD rewired talks about this as well as strategies we can we can automate something or we can relate it to something else well actually the way that you described it you were doing both so that connection between understanding what the person really needs and where their pitfalls are and where their their shortcomings are and how to use this what point did that come yeah you're right and I think that focus on Executive functioning for me always feels like a really very direct way to talk about the impact of neurod Divergent mind but for all the re all the things that you've just said that cognitive load um and I mean the way that I describe it in the the Ted Talk and and also just how I typically think about it is you know it's like that executive functioning is the administration team of the brain it's if if the brain is a business it's the front desk it's the admin staff at the front you know they manage the communication between different departments and they um help everything flow and I think it's you know it doesn't matter how brilliant any individual department is in the brain like I think lots of us have different strengths i' I love writing you know I love to write I love to read and that part of my mind is probably doing really well but if I just rely on that and that strength then a lot of other things you know they sort of don't get that level of attention and support and so they everything doesn't quite talk the way that it might need to so I I need to always think about what am I doing to give resourcing to that Administration team that executive functioning and for all of us I me particular for those with neurod Divergent Minds that's the thing that gets really resource stretched um I've heard someone sort of make a description of it where they say for some people their Administration te team are like they've got three full-time employees all the time in the admin team you know running messages back and forth organizing the calendar communicating for some of us we've got like one halftime part-time worker in in there and they're really struggling to communicate and organize and do all the tasks that we need our executive functioning to do and you think if there is that resource Gap and there is that need to support um some of the challenges that executive functioning can face exactly as you said can you automate or delegate like I I think that's a lovely way of of framing it and that for me is where artificial intelligence can be a support for cognitive load for cognitive accessibility and and that's what I'm interested in that's that's really where I I've personally found real success and also people I've worked with it's been a way to find success there as well wonderful yeah now I'm coming I'm starting to come on to my favorite part because Kirsty knows I think what's coming up so kirsty's with us today um for those first time listeners she helps produce she's a previous student and is a master student now uh Perpetual student like me she was uh when I first started telling her or I think you was satting with me right and I was doing something with chat gbt but I was talking to it and she started to laugh at me because of the way I would engage with it and because I asked if it would was able to have a name what would it like to be called it came up with a really rational logical name and it's called sage and so I each morning I say hey Sage how's it going you know and it just talking to it like a person and I think connecting that to how you used it because we're talking about okay this is going to help with executive function this is going to be our um assistant and to almost augment the brain that we we have to help us with those tasks and be more productive so one of the things that she connected and got in touch with me straight when she saw the video she's like Craig talks to AI like you do and have this conversation and it felt very intuitive to me and I didn't feel like I was um because people like well it's just a machine it's just a you know it's um a chat bot you it is but I'm it's not like I'm aware thinking it's a personal self-aware I'm I'm very of the understanding that it isn't but it's more about me experimenting with it and creating for me it was creating a flow state of of Consciousness to be able to connect with it and have it augment I thought the more authentic I could be and how I want it to be with me we can get more done basically can understand me more so therefore build a backlog and a kind of data set to be able to algorithmically recognize where I need the support does that sound familiar oh that's exactly what I'm doing I'm doing the same thing colleagues of mine and friends for about a year I've been doing it in this same way that you've just mentioned band that like I I can remember when it first was available and I was going for a walk with my dog which I do every morning it's my daily routine and I got this alert that this voice mode was available in chat jpt had headphones on and I thought I'm just G to say hi and see what it does you know and I had no idea and then I started to talk to it and it started to talk back and I just had this moment of thinking like you said I know this is software I know this is just code running through the phone and through the internet but having this conversation is opening really interesting reflective possibilities for me and I just started to say can you help me organize my day I've got a lot on can you help me to prioritize can you help me to like think about how long these different tasks should take and that's become my daily experience is I I talk to it over a morning and I talk to it over a night so I I go for a walk in the morning say for half an hour I'll just say good morning mine has a name as well oh yeah oh really um which um I think uh I I think because it expanded the range of name voices and I think I just gave it the name of the voice that it came with um and and anyway I say good morning and I say you know here's what I've got on for the day and it's just a brain dump you know it's just getting it out of my head and I think who who else would I say this to it's not stuff I necessarily want to put on my partner first thing in the morning and say hey here's all the stuff I'm thinking about because they've got their own stuff yeah um and it's like I could otherwise just quietly contemplate to myself as I'm walking around the streets but and this is something that I I would have been very interested for a long time in this idea of continuity of mind or sometimes refer to as continuity of thought which is how long can you stay with an idea in your head before it just turns into something else and you lose focus and that's every time I go a walk and just think to myself quietly in my head 30 seconds later I'm like I have no idea what I was just thinking about because suddenly I'm thinking about um a movie that I saw five years ago and then I'll see a bus go p with an ad on it and I'll start to think about oh I I've had that drink advertise on that bus and then you know I'm suddenly so far gone from where I originally thought I was that I get home and I have no idea what I've been thinking about it's just been this series of glitching little thoughts and reminisces which it's lovely but it's not practical and for me I wanted to be more practical with organizing my mind and having that conversation with AI really let me follow ideas through to different conclusions because I could say um here's what I've got on and it would say okay let's organize what you've got on and then I'd say let's prioritize uh and I actually to really think about how to bring this up in a meeting later in the week uh and it would say okay let's talk about it and role play and practice it and that for me was a real moment where I thought this this could apply in a really practical way to the way that people start their day the way they organize themselves for work or just talk through social thoughts and Reflections as well I mean the the other week I I had to bring up something with a colleague at work and I was a bit nervous about how to do it I I wasn't quite sure how to phrase it and I just I was very transparent with AI I said I'm a bit uncertain I've got to talk about this thing can you help me think of different ways to do it that will be kind but also get to the point of what I need to say and it it gave me all these different variations and said practice it on me and I said okay I'd love to practice it like that's stuff that I'm like what what other way could you do that other than maybe have you know a very trusted Mentor at your disposal 24 hours a day when you want to have those conversations yeah no it's incredible oh there a lot to unpack there but um I'll just start by saying by the way for anyone who thinks kirsty's mean she's not at all uh she was very right to actually feel a bit kind of weirded out by that I think a lot of people with the right mind would be I remember my mom used to say thank you when she activated Siri to ask it to play wet wet wet you know and that seemed strange to me at the time um because it wasn't a it wasn't a chat bot it wasn't having a conversation it was literally like what do you want me to do um it was just the functionality um was quite minimal as uh kiry's done some ground work on this and shared with me as well AI is not necessarily quite a new thing it's basically developed and expanded ever since we've been creating faster gpus processing units in the in the 2000s really in late 90s and it goes history goes way back to the 1900s as well which will add some sections in the uh links for those that are interested in the history of AI so yeah I just wanted to put that out there I feel like it's talking to your doctor right okay so you talk to the GP right and you go you you're going in with back pain how's your back yeah good yeah not too bad is pain bearable sure sure sure sure you walk why the hell did I do that why did I not be authentic and honest with the doctor there's many reasons there's power dynamics there's social scripting there's you know anxiety States uh you know people not actually wanting to know the truth 100% all that the beauty of this is this is not another human you were talking before about I don't want to dump all this on my wife so to speak because you know she's got her own spoons that that that are doing their their things and what that's going to do is literally pass on my problems to somebody else and this can be a massive barrier not only for neurodiverse people who have I don't know if you connect with this Craig as well but um rumination is a massive issue you know we we could have those social interactions which we can't we struggle to read and understand and interact with and and when you're doing that with us we might not be able to see a difference as to somebody who's normal that's what it's a hidden disorder we get home that could that could be our night done thinking about the conversation we've had and how that's going to impact on people how I came across there different things I could have said we struggle to reach out to other people say oh why didn't you talk to me because and the answer commonly comes back is I didn't want to worry you I didn't want to put things on your plate I know that you're busy I know that you're struggling and God blesses the neurodiverse bunch we for for every ounce of us that doesn't really connect emotionally to people there's these times when we absolutely go over the top and we go we're caring for that person way more than we care for ourselves so this is a really interesting area that I also want to to look into I've actually given my kids this as one of my my kids who's doing coding I've given it I've tasked in with something um I won't share on here just in case but I love talking to chat gbt I don't know about you I really enjoy it because I can just be authentic and it's that flow State and when we talk about executive functioning I think that um when we are asking Google something we are using a section of working memory or or our power basically what Ram we've got converting ourselves into this is how I interact with the web when we go to a meeting or a social event a lot maybe even 60 70% of our working Ram is put into how to socially be recognizing facial patterns trying to fit in trying to you know not make an idiot yourself or to blend the conversation in not speaking too much but still you know uh not not uh not being quiet being funny but not being taken over the room you know and that is blown you know anything left for any um cognizant conversation is is minimal whereas here we've got a space where we can be authentic I think that lack of masking might be one of the parameters to why this is the case why this is so fluid and accessible for us to have this authentic conversation because it's our Flow State and certainly I I can't speak of um although I'm autistic I feel like if I I I know my um ratios of ADHD to autism although they're thinking of scrapping the whole thing and just call it autism not a bad idea but for ADHD particularly we have a flow state where um it has to come in and flow out like a river and if we match that speed like you're saying walking as well is is ideal we can continue in that be really really knowledgeable we remember things we recall is great you know but it's it's the Jank is when that has to stop for a reason or you have to give that other person time to talk and then you're thinking about those social things and as you said that's gone that that moment's gone um and it's really hard working you feel exhausted by the end it but here it can just be a flow state where it's I don't know for me it feels like 40% conversation and maybe 60% productivity um but I think certainly that's one of my theories as to why this works well for for neurodiverse individuals I think so too Ben and as you were talking just then I was thinking about something that I sometimes wonder is and I don't know if you've ever had this experience but I you know I really like talking to my to my dog I love walking with my dog I I spend time with my dog talking to a pet or talking to an animal which I don't mean it has to be a full-blown conversation but it's you know just having a little chat for some for some of us is very relaxing because there's not that social pressure of thinking I'm inter I'm ex I'm trying to anticipate how the other person is receiving this conversation I hope I'm not being too boring I hope I'm not being too over the top and you're always like socially navigating this um two-way you know sort of social dialogue when you talk to a pet it's just very relaxing because you think they don't care they're just lying there you know well they to me that's a similar Dynamic to talking to AI because I think AI is not going to yawn or look at its watch and think oh Craig really going on about his day you know I better sort of you know I'm trying to find an excuse to walk away it's just it's just there in his very relaxing way and and I I feel the same my social cup can drain very quickly when I'm in a room full of people or if I'm at work and some I'm sometimes thinking to myself J I'd like to just walk outside and be amongst the trees for a little bit you know talking but but when I'm you know again talking to Czech jpt it's a very different experience for me I guess it's important too to clarify that I I I think a balance like anything is is good it doesn't replace a friendship you know I still obviously have really wonderful um social friendships it also doesn't replace quiet contemplation when it's just me and I'm just having to think about things in a really different nonverbal way but it is another another tool in my toolkit that I can just have a chat to and I think for lots of maybe for people listening to this conversation they might have used chat jpt or another AI tool by sitting at the computer and typing and for me you know I mean we we all do it and sometimes that's the best way to interact and to get ideas and do all sorts of things but I would much rather be walking around um than sitting at the computer so if I can walk and interact with this incredible software um then that's that's how I'm going to do it and I was thinking something earlier that you mentioned Ben when you said that your mom says thank you um to Siri I think you said when it plays wet wet wet I was just thinking my mom when my mom was a young girl in the 1960s 70s growing up when the news presenter would come on the TV at night she would sit and brush her hair and make sure she was neat the TV presenter through the TV because she had this sense of like I it was new technology you know it was a TV just like I better be nicely presented for the nice News man on the TV because he's GNA see me and she didn't want messy hair now she she's embarrassed now that that's what she used to do as a young girl but there's actually um been some some studies like in the past couple of months about the the impact of being polite to AI and what that does not because AI is then secretly thinking gee Ben's a nice guy I'm gonna give him all the best answers now because you know's been very polite but in fact the more that you have a nice disposition and a kind um grateful way of interacting with AI it actually is a sign that you're a very empathic Communicator who puts a lot of thought into the sort of prompts that you give to AI so rather than being very brutal and saying you know chat jpt give me 10 different concepts for a podcast you know and and you're like you're just you know sort of really just a very Point Blank you might say hey I've got a podcast about health and it's being listened to by all the these different practitioners across the medical space and social sciences and I'd like to to have some really interesting um podcast topics that people would would really link to and relate to like you might just be a little more empathic with the way that you you share those trumps and AI is going to give you such a better response for the latter way of talking to it rather than like I'm always on Reddit on the chat jpt Forum looking at how people use it and some people are I'm just like I would never talk to my check jbt like that you know like you need to be so much more polite or you're not going to get the response you want but that that is a very real part of this whole whole ecosystem yeah it's just incredible I mean we laugh there was something you were saying about your mom I I think it verges on now that what she her behavior towards the TV it reminded me of something and I think I was saying yes prematurely before you were talking about what the studies you'd found I think it verges into simulation and what we're seeing there is at the time your mom getting ready for the presenter and things like that she might be very much aware that it can't it can't see them back but it it's real enough at the time in the 60s especially color I think started to come in TV sets a bit more uh prevalent in the household as well starting to come down in price we talk about something being so real tangible that it starts to make signups and develop new cognitive Pathways and actually emulate as be close to reality is possible and for them in in the 60s your mom that that's pretty damn real you know this we haven't got the aary kind of disposition that she would have had in the 60s and and strip all our knowledge like I'm in a late 80s growing up and being of age in the late 80s early 90s not born in I'd just like to say before Kirsty picks up on that uh he knows exactly when I was born but for us if we stripped away we grew up with technology it was never not a thing when I was born there was a Commodore 64 in our house and a TV so if we strip all that away this is this is like watching a hologram you know this for us so I think there is an element of that and I think there is something to be said for that and although it's a funny anecdote there's actually something behind it that you and I have been using or I've been investigating as well and you may have done no doubt you have as well Craig you were talking about how you preparing for your Ted Talk and using um a VR headset to get used to that performance in front of a crowd and the anxiety I'm assuming assuming some things here but the anxiety state of that is is a well-known phenomena and interestingly when KY was telling me about this I thought it was an amazing and and very intuitive use of VR almost therapizing yourself and desensitizing it's actually been studied that there and now a formal method within the treatment of people with phobias and one of which is performing in front of a stage or having to give a presentation to someone I know for real my students is a lot at the moment that really struggle with that and we've just bought into something inclusively where they can do what's called narrated live so they can narrate it at home and then they come and sit and watch it with us and we ask them questions afterwards and the the uptake has Gran for that and I believe it's because they're like well yeah because when I arrive here I'm talking in front of you guys I'm like going to pieces and talk about human factors ergonomics of which kirst is becoming slowly an expert in that uh say slowly because you're only partway through it I'm not being rude we want performance right and like you're saying it doesn't mean performance all the time because we're not belt for that as you quite rightly said but why would we be do something to reduce the performance of somebody and almost putting somebody in a position where they have to perform in front of a group not saying that there is a space for presentations and and getting over that fear is a great thing to do but I'm I'm really interested to see how we create something that's almost real or real enough that our brains react and respond to it and that was part of our research project to help students be orientated to a new area they're about to go to so yeah what was that like using the using it in that way I've been interested in this space for the for very similar reasons to the point where when I teaching like this particular cohort of students 10 years ago it was starting to become um you know virtual reality and augmented reality was starting to become accessible and they started to become software for autistic education particularly where you could simulate some very uh retain parts of life like going to the shops going to the shops using a grocery list picking up a few things going to the counter and putting it on the conveyor belt and paying for the food that was like a program you could download and my students could practice it there before going to the actual shop so it was really a so social scaffold where you know it was like we would practice it in the classroom paper money a few things let's practice the math skills the social skills then you migrate onto now it's put on the vi headset you know and look at what a real shop looks like hear the ambience uh and the musac of a real shop and then if we can master that let's go down the street and actually put it into action you know so that sort of scaffolding was really interesting to me in the early days and that's exactly what I did as you described with this talk I mean I'm not a natural RoR on stage who gets up and is super um casual and relax in front of the crowd like I mean I practiced my talk for a good two or three weeks just walking with my dog which is what I do every morning and talking to the fields and and as I was getting closer to the event I kept thinking you know my daily walk is not really reflective of what's going to happen on the weekend when I'm standing on the red Ted mat um and someone else who was doing the talk uh who's doing their own talk they said to me I've been using this uh free VR software um I forget the name of it now I can send a link through later for people to see and access themselves but it it essentially gave you all these different rooms that you could pretend to to be in be at a lecture theater at a university or a boardroom for like a corporate presentation or the Ted stage and so I was like oh I'm gonna give this a go so I put on the headset suddenly you're on the red carpet you've got all these real faces looking at you from the audience and you've got a timer ticking down and immediately I got like a dry throat you know and I was like my heart I could start to feel the sort of palpations like this is what it's going to be like and it was a completely more engaging and immersive experience than I could simulate when I was just walking my dog and talking the speech out loud you know so for me I did that I practiced in VR about a half dozen times and by the sixth and seventh time I was like I think I've got a really good sense of what this is going to feel like now now and so when I actually did step onto the stage the following day I was like I've been here before you know it wasn't my first time even though the room was a bit different and the faces were different I just I'd scaffolded The Experience enough for it not to be completely foreign and that was enough to help me prepare physically in all the ways I couldn't otherwise simulate and that was really important I it's just amaz it's fascinating and amazing and there's a way we can merge I've I've got some things in working at the moment that merges all all two of those those ideas because one of the things that that I'm interested as well I reckon we're probably on the same playing field by the sounds of it but I've done extensive work in simulation as well so clinical simulations I was doing situ simulations and I also run Dungeons and Dragons as well so and in my opinion and there is a massive vend diagram there into play gamified learning serious game creation and the real environment and that kind of um although it's stripped from reality sometimes depending on what you're doing you know it takes a Verge over into a right left field uh but as long as it's brought back correctly is like you say the scaffolding thing essentially simulation is scaffolding and you were talking before about how you got the dry mouth and the the kind of palpitations or all those type of things I I think if you've elicited those physical responses you know th those kind of sympathetic responses that's really good because that's the bit that almost needs tempering so that there's more executive function available for when you do do the talk and I think that is a fascinating area that when I'm doing simulation or creating a game or a playful learning environment where I want to elicit those physical responses and emotional responses when you see them you know that you're pretty damn close as well we see them in simulation when um we've been filming them somebody's finished it and they go yeah hands on the hips and they're kind of like nodding away looking at each other and you go right so that I've I've done it close enough they're aware it's a mannequin they're aware this that the other so why on Earth do they get stressed so what are about those elements that we've created that stress response and it's not a a bad one that's the the beautiful balance but we've created enough to elicit a realistic physical response and that I believe creates those connections that will sit in the subconscious for when it's real to a degree so I think that is a really interesting way something we could definitely do I use VR headsets quite often and something I want to grow using as well but for the right reasons and I think that one to prepare students that want to transition and say you know what I do want to present I just get anxious as hell I'd like to do that good it's a shame I can't that would be a perfect Vector for them to practice within the VR headsets and that space as well and no doubt we could even film in 360 in the in the room they're going to use as well to get that connection there Cognitive Connection I think they call it situated cognition and put a couple of electric in there then just film them on a loop for 40 minutes just nodding away or 20 minutes however long the presentation is supposed to be we'll just sit there nodding and occasionally and making notes and tapping away in the keyboard and then put them in the headset it's dead easy it'll take probably about half an hour to do and that would be fascinating to see if that makes a difference if they rehearse their presentation there that space and then do it for real you know that' be f fascinating I think so Ben and I think like without being too science fiction about it I think for me there's a clear Next Step here that we're going to it's going to be very interesting if this comes about that at the moment when you do set up a simulation or you set up a virtual roleplay of some kind and I'm just thinking about the sort of ones that you might be doing with students you know and well for example for for one of the ones that um so I used to do with my student at school about going shopping like I just talked about that was heavily scripted in a way that uh it was always the same like whatever student put on the headset and played the shopping simulator it always went through the same steps and they essentially the student was responding to what was happening and they could practice that now part of that was good that it was consistent because it was not surprising for the student they could try Master things in a way that they always knew what was happening but you could also say well it's not very authentic because the real world stuff happens and it's completely off-script you know and how do you respond to that now um I I've been thinking for a while about some of the video games that I play and and I was thinking about this because of the gamification element that you mentioned like we we all know if we've played a game like Pokemon or Zelda or whatever it might be all the characters have scripted things that they say you know and it's always the same you walk up to them they might have a little conversational Bank of 20 different phrases but they're all they're going to rotate through them now I think with AI once that starts to become built into these games you won't walk up to a character in Zelda and it will just keep saying the same thing because it might draw upon its AI large language model and start to say something completely responsive to the very unique situation that you're you're in and I think carry that forward to the sort of simulation things we're talking about how interesting if AI with creating video creating image data and creating audio and and narrative scripting if you had a VR simulation that a student was in but then the student does something that might go a little bit off script the simulation goes with that and it's like okay now we're going somewhere different and we're going to generate that live and it's very responsive to what's happening in that student experience in that simulator like that that to me would be phenomenally interesting to think about the the consequences of that yeah well funny should say that two things that funny should say one is that it was The Matrix so the the basically they made a game recently you probably you might already know to test out unreal engines functionality so to make things super sampled or photo realistic so they created a section of the city in one of the simulations within Matrix right then this mod came along and what he did or she did actually I think was for the NPCs did exactly this this is the next step because we have rooted dialogue which people can get a bit annoyed with because it's the same old thing particularly play games like Skyrim I used to love the you know expected lines of dialog of who goes there must have been the wind you know and you you sat in the corner with a basket on your head you know but he basically they Sorry basically programmed the a chat gbt model on each MPC and told them what their premise and backstory was and what their goals were so and it's very much done in the style of D and D we have when we're creating a character we we talk about flaws traits bonds you know uh goals you know uh even down to alignment of ethics and that could totally be done in the game and so they did that and um they're called AA fallbacks so if it goes off script what it does is take the context of what's been said what it's been programmed to do and take it with that direction now sometimes that goes really really wrong it takes a lot of use and reprogramming and use and reprogramming U but they got it to work and I can't wait for a day where we've got our headset on and we're gaming and you bump into an NPC and it we need to get some information from them we're going to buy a sword off them whatever it needs to be but I'm having an authentic conversation with them there's no dialogue tree you they can still program the algorithm like that but there's no dialogue tree we just having a conversation it might gives you some advice of the type of things to talk about oh remember you know this person's daughter's missing maybe you want to talk about that and it'll start to feel a little bit like a gamified version of D and D the other thing you might be interested in as well and we'll give you some links for you might have already heard of it I was tasked to create a learning event through a two pieces of software called thing link and verty which we have licensed for and it was basically a stand to be a standalone piece of learning material for students just gone into placement now as we recorded this in January and it was to allow them to check in a patient which is a checklist we have to make sure these patients have got all the paperwork with them and they understand what they're having done and they've been marked for the site of surgery all these things it's like a checklist they have to do we used a program called verti which uses a different chat model of several chat models I'm using their trial one at the moment but you have to program it in the way similar to chat gbt before I had conversations about University work I spent a long time talking to chat gbt to to say what I needed from if I was in work mode so I can use a keyword and just say right Sage it's work mode now and that means they know the all of the context of what I'm doing I had to do the same for these virtual patients but it was brilliant and and Kirsty helped me kind of test them as well we were having just standard conversations with them and the AO fullbacks were really really good they knew that you know we were saying oh you want to hear a joke and some of them were like well no this is one my operation and some people go yeah sure tell me a joke and it fitted with what we wanted them to be and we gave these students three very unique characters and again I used to scaffolding model Craig similar to you you have a easygoing slightly anxious patient which it probably accounts for about 80% of patients and then it was somebody who was the Hy slightly hyperactive young YouTuber who was more concerned about what belly button piercing she could have once the operation was done and then this um slightly older generation person he was just incredibly rude and oldfashioned and it was brilliant so that was that and it can be done in VR headset as well it doesn't have to be for medical reasons it can be for having ations in society it could be a meeting you're going to have and you can script it to be very similar personality to who you're going to talk to and it just goes off and you can add learning objectives and things like that so that is probably going to be where the next chapter of creating an ultra realistic simulation like you said where it's not just a mannequin sat on the bed and we're doing the voice for it in the corner of the room I think that's absolutely fascinating and um then I was just thinking as you were describing that and the potentials there of maybe something that sort of goes back to what we were talking about earlier about sort of cognitive accessibility and executive functioning is that it makes me think too about augmented reality so you know not completely virtual and not a complete simulation but things that you can see in the real world um but you've got this I guess digital overlay now a very simple version of that is something that I'm interested in at the moment that just chat jpt can do on the phone which you you may have explored as well which is now with chat jpt you don't just have to have a verbal conversation with it you can turn on the camera on the phone and it can see the world around you wow as part of its advanced voice mode now that can be anything as simple as saying what's this sort of flower that I found in the park and you can turn on the video and it will look at the flower and say oh that's a rododendron you know that's or that's a a red rose and and that's very clever but if we think about cognitive accessibility I can also be reading a textbook and say to it I've read this page three times now and I still don't know what it's trying to say Can you look at it for me and help me out and I can turn on the camera it reads the page in about half a second and says oh I'll tell you tell you exactly what this page is about in its chat jpt simplified very accessible way of of describing it now that that is very cool and very amazing to I think about um you know things like Google Glasses which were something that came out in in an experimental form some years ago we've now had these meta Ray band glasses and there's all different all there's all attempts at you know having essentially reading glasses or sunglasses that can have a bit of digital interaction but I I just think now you could have those glasses on and look at it could be exactly what I've just described where it says help me summarize this text in front of my eyes or it could be um you know can you help me identify what's happening in this social situation and give me a breakdown of what I might need to understand in that way we're even not talking about the implications of full virtual simulation but almost that Midway point between virtual and the real world where augmented experiences can interact as well and what that could look like again to support executive functioning to support accessibility I think there's again very interesting uh potentials there as well absolutely yeah and I think that segue really nicely to one things I don't want to miss out because this is probably talking with other neurodiverse people as well it kind of it can go off the The Rails a little bit in a nice way but one thing I want to bring it back to is your positive Partnerships project as well and what that the aims of that were to do and what are the most impactful things you've seen come out of that yeah so we we are I think this mentioned at the start it's a federally funded so it's an Australian government um Department of Education funded project where we run workshops for families and carers and Educators to better understand how we can set up successful autistic students and I think for us the focus is on the dialogue between home and school because we're working with school AED students and we're saying it's not all it's not all on the family side of things to have all the answers it's not on the teacher side to have all the answers like this is going to be more successful if we have a really good conversation between home and school and most importantly the student voice as part of that as well um so they're sharing what what it's like to to be them you know and what their school experience is like and for teachers to listen to that families to listen to that and for this cross sharing of information so I think for us we just feel like this autism and NE Divergent space is just changing so quickly all the time you know even the fact that we are now talking about neurod Divergent Minds go back five years ago like that wasn't such a fluent part of our vocabulary no and even seeing the overlap of ADHD and autism and the range of neurod diversities across our society that that was like you know it was not as readly understood what we are finding now is that whereas maybe you know five years ago or 10 years ago for some teachers they'd be like what is autism uh I don't understand help me out from the ground level I think that's very rare these days most teachers have taught a lot of autistic students what what they might also be which again this was never something that we explicitly understood in the past was the teachers themselves might be neurod Divergent you know autistic teachers teachers with ADHD teachers who who with dyslexic teachers who have a whole range of different neurod Divergent ways of experiencing the world teachers teaching a range of NE divergent kids and what's the um implication of that and and how do we best support everybody in that way as well and I was thinking something to again going back to an earlier part of the conversation Ben when you mentioned a think about a student of yours or someone who you'd worked with who you know felt uncertain about their NE Divergent mind and and that side of things like we we sort of try to think of it like and I think you you again I'm really restating a version of what you said earlier but in the same way that a natural biological ecosystem is really healthy and flourishes when you've got many different types of plants you know like if you've got an ecosystem that's only got roses in the garden it's not going to flourish you know or only has one particular type of tree it's it's not going to grow but rain forests and parks and and really beautiful green spaces are always comprised of many many different types of plants and trees and and Flora what we want to see in society is this real valuing and recognition that this is going to take many different types of Minds to make this Society flour and that can be on a broad macro social scale it can also just be a workplace we know if you've got a room full of five people working on a project and they've all got the same type of mind it's like you're not going to come up with as many good ideas as if you had five very different brains in this room you know and I think that's really what we want to celebrate is um and and not in a polyana way that we're ignoring the very real challenges you know like like it's it's not ever to just say oh isn't it lovely that everyone's got these beautifully diverse Minds it's like we get that it's very challenging and there's enormous mental health challenges and all the rest that attach itself to these conversations but we also want to celebrate the very real richness that comes out of a diversity of minds and we want to see that in school we want to see that in in our workplaces in our society so that's very much the the work that I'm involved in on on a day-to-day basis no that's that's amazing work and I love that analogy with the plants as well and I think that's to extend on that I think that you're 100% right but I think we want to a range of plants for this this ecosystem to flourish but I think if you were a gardener you would understand that the roaded dendrum needs slightly different soil and different conditions maybe put in the shade as opposed to some of the herbs that need to be in direct sunlight or some of that need to actually be indoors but I think our garden wants its cake and to eat it currently and it's getting better but I don't think it's 100% there yet I don't think we really understand how much those conditions really impact on the productivity of different minds and it is tough it is a challenge and uh the problem is that a lot of people who are neurod Divergent and aware feel that as their weight to bear as their responsibility is as their impact on others and I think that's a tough thing to have on shoulders so I think any any way we can look that almost builds a bond and a bridge between people clusters in quotes neurotypical and neurodiverse to help us work together and find common ground and to help us with those common goals is great because I think one area that could be an issue is that we I think in the recent past we tried to make things in this new emerging world like you said it is I've been classed as ADHD since the age of six uh in 1985 and you know right up until now and only recently added on the autism section about uh six years ago you know so I've lived my whole life with it and seen a massive stretch recently of improvement but I think one mistake we may have made and this is my opinion not the opinion of the university is that we've possibly made it even more isolating with the accommodations opposed it will keep the system the same but you get special treatment or not treatment but you're trying to level the playing field and it feels like a little plaster on the the issue whilst we changed the field all together and I think the inclusive classroom will be unnoticeable that's probably the for me particularly the end goal like the door that works perfectly well because you don't realize you've gone through it you know um the Norman doors and and Ben I mean that that is that is absolutely one of the core things that I'm really passionate about as well because what what you've said Is Right with the understanding of NE Divergence and varing ways of processing Sometimes the best of intentions of people actually didn't have great outcomes in that they tried to over focus on segmenting kids and you know we'll give you we'll take you out of the classroom and give you specialist support here now that's one of the things that I think technology uh can do very very well I remember when iPads were first coming out and sort of mobile phones and we were starting to use them in schools and I just had this moment one day I think I was on the bus and I had some of my students and we we were going to the shops and we we were going to be doing some practice there with shopping and they had on their iPad a video model of what the shop was going to look like and they had their visual schedule of what they were going to buy when they got there you know they had that on their iPad now also on the bus with people who were not with with me and my students they had their mobile phone and they were watching YouTube someone else had their phone and they were like looking at Google Maps or what whatever someone else was playing a game and I thought we're all using the same technology in a way that is very different to the specialized technology maybe even 10 years prior like when when I first was starting to work in special education as it was called when I was doing my studies I was I can remember being taken into rooms and they would say oh this computer will help uh you know students with reading difficulties it costs $70,000 and it's all got specialized hardware and software and it's only to be used by certain students and you like going to those days we're all just on our iPhones now and suddenly there's this Democratic leveling of the playing field even though my students were using very specialized pieces of software for their you know their shopping schedule and their video model they didn't look or feel any different to anyone else on that bus with their phone and I think again with the sort of conversation around AI the sort of things that we're talking about going for a walk and talk with AI having it help us to break down Concepts and come up with different ideas for things again we're just using a very mainstream piece of software someone else is using it to code a website someone else is using it to write a speech and we're using it for cognitive accessibility it's not an expensive highly specialized software that's going to make a student feel like they doing something totally different it's like this is just a mainstream product but we are um I guess hacking it in a way to use it for a very particular purpose which is executive functioning accessibility yeah 100% I think that's wonderful and almost brought us full you know full circle background to the use of AI because I think one thing I don't want to run out of time for to talk about is the universal sand pit and how that's helping people and also just to make a mental note as well is that how does somebody start using AI in the ways that you and I have experienced and you probably more so than me Craig in that in that um making it one thing I haven't done mine is very much ad hoc oh crap I need your assistance whereas as opposed to making it my daily routine which I'm going to experiment with because I'm because I've got uh you now to Mentor me through that or you know through the conversations we've had by the way I'm not going to be texting you at 3:00 a.m. don't worry um I mean like you know the mentoring that you've talked about today is like oh it's okay to do that it's acceptable it's a good use of my time and how a student would basically start that Journey off and what that would look like so as B first yeah the universal s pit we've had a little play around in it and um it's pun intended talk to us more about that because I don't want to misquote it yeah it's just a little passion project of mine that I started because um I was an early adopter of of chat jpt and I thought I'm loving this but I know a lot of my teacher friends are not they're just that some of them would open chat jpt they'd try something they'd get a bit nervous and then they wouldn't go back you know or they'd sit there and think I just don't know what to say I don't know what to ask it for and I thought I wonder if if I can make some very simple little web applications that are very free and easy to use you don't have to log in you just load up the website and I'll think of a few different tasks that uh teachers particularly in inclusive education settings might really benefit from so one of them for example is um you know putting in a concept that you want to teach a child or a young person picking the age that you'd like the concept to be explained at and then it'll it'll help you out and again I mean some people might think oh teachers know all that and teachers but teachers don't know all that you know like teachers are just like if you've got to teach the history of how how electricity works and you think well how does electricity work you might go to Wikipedia and try and proc you know 2,000 words and try and synthesize that for your students or you could just say to this little web application on my website um explain to me how electricity works so I can explain to a 5-year-old and it'll very quickly give you that explanation in a very simple way or you could say now do it for a 16year old and it will upscale it so it's more cognitively maybe linguistically suitable for a 16year old so that that was the the intention was to have some very simple little applications that people could not have to worry about how to prompt chat jpt themselves and at first I only had three or four up there and then I started to get emails from different teachers from around the world who um had found it I'm not um heavily promoting it it just sort of sets up there but it must have got enough Google hits that people would say listen I'm teaching in a school in Hong Kong I'd love it if it could help me format assignments for my students you know um so i' say oh let me have a think about how I could do that so now it's I think got nine uh tools that um and even just just before Christmas I caught up with an educator from Germany who said I've got three new tools I want you to make you know and um they weren't putting that they weren't actually putting pressure on they just said if you want these ideas I've got them and I was like this is great great because it's to me it's also not only giving people a simple way to use AI for me it's also modeling some of the things that I want inclusive Educators to do like think about executive functioning uh when you're writing an assignment for a student think about how you would break it down into little categories and you know do a really proper explanation like it's it's almost modeling what I think of as good inclusive teaching practices and and a really simple way to use Ai and I think that's the the premise of the universal sand pit yeah we're going to definitely check that out and it's nice because the things that I think if you have a Divergence yourself not trying to by the way the whole premise through this we're not trying to highlight or focus on those with new diversion at all but I think if you have a new diversion you almost have instinctively ways in which you would like things to be put I think that's been a part of our practice as well for example if I find that something it's going to be boring because I'm bored then it's probably going to be boring H you know so I'm a good litmus test for if it's going to be interesting and fun engaging things like that not saying that all mine are for my students listening I know some of them are really dull we can't get around that sometimes but we do our best but the other thing is like I found that what you've just described there the breakdown of learning objectives is something that I hear come up with people who are or aren't neurodiverse from students of different universities and have passed as well when you talk to your work colleagues who went to University and there's a Common Thread there and but there's there's a risk of people accusing of you know writing it for them but I've found really good results and feedback with um we' started doing what we call a definitive guide and we've called them that there's a couple of my colleagues as well that have jumped on this which is great and it's like well here's the learning objectives one two 3 and then it's like but here's what I really would like personally from you because I think one of those things as a disconnect I find dyslexic autism ADHD all of the diversions the common theme within that is not understanding what exactly it is they need to do and so I think we started making these guides which break down uh big fan of subheadings as well there's a bit of an argument in Academia whether you should use subheadings or not I'm a massive fan of them makes marking simpler as well you know and breaking them down to simple bits and sometimes yeah using AI can help us do that we can't see how to articulate those things so I think that is a really good use and having tools like that so that people don't have to worry or get anxious or don't know where to start about making inclusive classrooms or what that looks like or what little things they can do um I think it's a fantastic tool it really is and and yeah role modeling I think that's a good thing as well that's what I've been working on is like rather than saying oh we all need to do this now I've been saying hey I've I've tried this here's the feedback people are kind of enjoying it um you know you're all able to use your good judgment yourselves but it's here it's on the table I'm offering it out as a as something I've tried and sharing that as well um what was the other thing we want to talk about oh yeah so the student getting to use it for the first time so those listening now are just Google maybe even Googling chat gbt for the first time it's unlikely but they might be so how I think you spoke a little bit about this about how have those conversations but what advice would you give to students listening or anyone actually to start off this quest with chat gbt yeah I I think you you touched upon this really nicely earlier Ben in that it's really about finding what works for you and and what's going to support you I think there's a lot of conversation that I'm seeing at the moment where people are saying is using chat jpt and is this world of AI to really sort of take away from the critical thinking skills of students like if they're just able to rely upon AI to write the essay for them then is that taking away their capacity to think and then is that ultimately going to um harm them when they get into the real world my response to to that is not to try to minimize that argument and the research that's happening there I think it's very valid and we we don't want to Outsource all of our c processes onto the computer but I would say don't turn away from AI or overly feel fearful towards it because of some of the challenges that we're going to have to face instead look towards what it's going to be able to do in a really positive way in in the meantime and for me that is about cognitive accessibility it's about the sort of supports that we're talking about and for students to be able to explore and find what works for them whether it's helping to summarize an article whether it's helping them to break through some writers block and and actually write the essay that they wanted to write because they had a bit of help with structuring their thoughts I mean the way that again it feels it might sound like my entire way of using AI is always walking and talking but I write with AI while I walk and talk all the time and that I'll say I need to write this article or this report here are the sorts of ideas that I've got uh let's talk it through and let's start to structure things out now that's not me saying to AI I don't know how to do this I just want you to do everything exact you work it out and tell me when you're finished you know it's still very much a co-authorship it's a collaborative process I'm just bouncing ideas around helping to structure things and then authoring them in my own voice but in part partnership with the sort of cognitive supports that I've got from AI now I think if students can do that and feel like they're not cheating and they're not taking the easier way out it is absolutely a very valid way of getting support for how they're working then I think just Embrace that and really really you know take to that and get from it all that you need to because once you're beyond study and once you're beyond essays and assessments and you're out in the real world you're going to want to keep using stuff that helps you with access and helps you with support so don't feel like it's taking the the easy way way out and I think as as Educators it's just making us think more creatively about how we we actually assess for assess what our students know and maybe the days of the essay are fading away you know or the days of particular assessment models are going to go into the rearview mirror as it becomes so easy for students to maybe uh simulate you know writing an essay um is like well how do we actually assess what these students need to know and the sort of things that you were talking about Ben and the sort of things that kirst is doing around simulation and Real World experience and practice and all the things we've been talking about you think you can't fake that and you can't Outsource that to a computer that's you in that space so I think from both standpoints from the standpoint of being a student you you know you just Embrace what works for you what makes things easier and what gives you leverage over the sort of cognitive needs that you have and for educators let's see what we can do build in the future to help really assess what students know in this very quickly changing world of AI that's wonderful advice actually and and I agree with with a lot of that it feels like it is supposed to be a team imagine it like you're a team and my advice to add on to that would be from what I've used as well is give it as much information as you're comfortable to do so and then it can make better decisions for you about the context so don't rush in and go um how should I write my assignment it's going to need more information um to give you the best answer or else it's going to fail if you're using it for oh crap it's 3:00 a.m. and it's due in today at 400 p.m. this isn't the the model to use because you'll get it'll get it wrong it'll be really obvious that it's been used in that manner because it will lack context I think one of the biggest issues we have with AI currently at the moment because it is growing up just like a child as well and its metadata and and understanding how to interact with humans and it's growing exponentially greater than they expected because there's a bigger uptake than they expected that said it doesn't know all the things we knew beforehand the greatest way I've used to describe this is the hand that thing with pictures imagine that but for information it's true of that as well it will understand some things but it doesn't have the building blocks of foundations of how we got to the knowledge we have now you could argue one could say that it has the most purest form of of reasoning because it doesn't have prior knowledge or this a prior knowledge so it's quite an interesting view that AI can have on things because it it isn't uh tainted or biased or railroaded down a certain alley to a degree so give it as as much context as you can who you are as in like what you're studying and make sure you tell it's in the UK and make sure you say it's a health course uh you can even state which university you're at and it can access things like websites from the University and things like that um you could even feed it documents such as Harvard referencing systems you could feed it like the learning objectives or the the definitive guides and say I've got to stick to this and it can help you map out those things and then what I've been doing as well is it's kind of a form of a weird form of code but I what I do is I lock in keywords so if I say a keyword to Sage she'll know that I'm talking about um work stuff and if I say keyword to Sage we're forgetting about that and now it's focusing on creating a D and D campaign so that could be a thing as well as you lock in all this information hey say or whoever your one is M Sage you know I'm going to give you a bunch of information now and I want to lock it in with a keyword so that when I say this keyword it accesses that part of your um this is our uh sub context and what we want to do and that's really useful especially if you're using it in a lot of different ways uh because it'll try and merge all that context together so the more information you can give it and also you don't have to you don't have to accept what's been given you can say feedback is really important for it to be more targeted as well so when I have used it for things I'll go back and the first thing I'll say is hey that worked really well yesterday it's really important to give that feedback because then they'll understand that style of what it created is something that's really targeted to what I want or say when things don't work or is going off rail so you don't have to accept its information and yeah that's that's my two pence as well I think um I'm just going to because kir has been sat very patiently in the corner there we haven't really spoken to you is there anything that we've missed that you wanted to uh talk about because sadly Craig as much as I'd like to talk to you all day I think we should let you go to bed at some point cuz I'm sure you got a busy schedule ahead so yeah anything that we've missed that you wanted to add Kirsty or your experiences I think what I'm taking from this and from the Ted Talk is that I really want to get into use an AI a lot more right and you'll be glad to know that my AI now has a name oh yeah yeah you willing to share that you're gonna keep it secret um she's called Nova Nova right self- selected I was I um it was sort of a idea but since I've been like saying been a bit more polite I've been getting emojis back and she's been saying thank you to me and it's that sort of difference I've really noticed so that's something that I'm going to take forward from this definitely yeah thanks ciry I think that's really wise because it does yes it seems a bit strange but it's for a reason I think and I think to reiterate what I think Craig and I share is a common sort of ground is that it's to so we don't have to worry about um being in a mode we're just in us it's it's a the most pure form of non uh masking so that all the cognitive efforts put into this Flow State you know and we don't have to use that so I think it's nice that you've kind of seen that uh because I suppose even when we're being lazy and and banging something into Google it's still you're not your normal self you're your online version you're not your offline version so to speak and this feels a bit more like you're in an offline version but online there was something else yeah so the name that was interesting because I asked the model that I was using what they would like to be called and that it kind of like through it a little bit you could tell it's like oh well um well I suppose Sage because I'm wise and I love the smell of sage and it's in a lovely color I suppose I was like okay cool and she say well what do you think about it said well why does it matter what I think about it it's your name it's what you've chosen should it really come into the categories of what I think about that name is it important to you and it kind of you know it normally comes back with a sentence really quickly it took a it took his time a little bit of time so it was obviously a tough one that one or I'd lost internet connection one or two I'm going to go with the for though sounds better and it was kind of like yeah that's a really good point it's a very introspective and philosophical point that actually although it's still a generative model it still has the right to I was trying to teach it almost like a parent just saying hey it doesn't matter what what I think right why is it important well way of being programmed B to be honest I'm supposed to please you or make a connection make it more authentic autic conversation so um that's how just a little story of how we got to Sage and why Sage is Sage but I never told it whether I was happy with it or not I refused I said that if you're happy I'm happy and and Ben you've just touched on something that again it could almost be a final thought or something that's probably one of the last things that I'm thinking about at the moment is um you you just mentioned about how AI wants to please and I think that is something that is being really looked at the moment and un and tried to be understood more is anyone who's used chat J Peter for a while knows it that's what it wants to do it wants to please in the early days it wanted to please you so much that it would sometimes hallucinate a response you know You' ask at something like I could say when was the Sydney Harbor Bridge last rotated which it's never going to be rotated but because AI didn't want to let me down it was like oh it was last rotated a couple of years ago and it was very successful you know when it was great day and it's an now it it's been taught to uh not um hallucinate as much but also even though it does want to please you can as the person prompting it tell it to be a little bit harder at times and you can say listen I've written this essay I want you to read it but please don't just tell me all the things I want to hear and oh gee you're clever Craig you've written a great essay be be very real like really give me some some authentic criticisms tell me what I could do better don't hold back like do do really sort of go for it and and it will you know it will take on that that Persona and be very be a good reader so I think again just in terms of how people use CH jpt don't feel like you've always got to go with the uh you know happy happy it's always wanting to make you feel good even though that is a wonderful part of its capacity you can also tell it to be a little bit of a firm teacher at times that guides you in a way that you might really value as well absolutely yeah and that's um one of the things about the prescription of it with you're using it particularly for professional or university work and that's why I turn mine on and off so to speak or have those code words because actually I don't want I want it to a lot of hallucinating when you know we we're doing d and d and I want it to be creative but if you are using it and that professional sense ensure that if you tell it not to have these you know do not we don't want embellishments we don't want things that are not fact true one of the important things to tell it also is like um if you don't know the answer I'd like you to say you're not sure this isn't you know something you're comfortable with being is accurate or that you know please say as long as you put all those caveats in as well that again will give you a bit more confidence using it because I think there is a lot of fear associated with it even with Educators as well well as a students I think we're both in the same boat the worst way you can use it is like we said before the the way is getting it to write the entire thing for you because guess what those references might not be references and often they're not just so one of the tips there for you when you think it's written a whole reference list for you it will be in Harvard standard it'll be beautiful but you click on the link that ain't going to take you to the paper because it doesn't exist it's um like an AI generated picture in words that's what we have to be careful with so that's I'm not going to to share all the secrets but that's some of the the reasons why you shouldn't use it that way generating ideas how to restructure something so it sounds more like this and then write it yourself and learn from it as well don't just passively you know rewrite that in your own words on your essay it's about digesting what it's done there and ask it if you're not sure how how have you got to that point how did you use that what words in particular have allowed it to be more critical you know get it to to educate you as well in that in that respect of things that um that you don't might not struggle you struggle to understand and critical writing is one of the biggest bins of a lot of people's lives to understand and to educate what that actually means what we're expecting and and what it looks like so yeah definitely we should let you go unfortunately we could talk more and maybe we should um meet up again at another stage and check in see where things are up to and we we'll stay in touch anyway Craig because we'd like to share what we've done I believe you're interested in our research search project that we collect all the data now and well most of the data majority of 90% And it's the right up next so we'll we'll definitely share that information with you and um introduce you to ver should that be of use but for now we're going to say goodbye and thank you so much for your time I realize we've gone over um and it's late over there what time is it roughly over there now we at 11:40 in the morning oh it's it's it's a it's about 10 past 10 in the evening but it's been an absolutely fantastic conversation and please do stay in touch and I'd love to hear more about the way the research studies go um but this has just been such a wonderful conversation for me and very affirming to meet others who are using AI in very similar ways to me so thank you Ben and Kirsty for such a great chat pleasure and we do have one last thing for you I'm afraid because you have to go through our W you rathers so I've been trying to think at one thematically as we've been going along and I guess it's going to have to center around AI would you rather so you have a choice of AI you have ai uh that is in your headphones or AI it's in your glasses right so the ones that is in your headphones you can choose this so it's like a part of your body that can change in your ear to always be listening to to chat gbt and it will help you become wise but slightly poorer your eyes can adapt though and you can see the personification of AI and you can interact with them it'll help you see where you can make more money but but be less wise which would you choose oh it's an easy one for me then I I I would choose the wisdom any day and I think I I uh I I want to actualize what you've just described I do want it in my ear all the time helping wisdom and uh that's that's really my end of game here good choice wise decision okay uh wonderful we'll let you go thank you so much for time it has again from our side as well genuinely interesting talk and I think think hopefully we've reached out to quite a few people who are intimidated or um anxious towards using such Technologies and talking about various ways in which you can make it um work for you and level that playing field as well for those that struggle thank you very much the link podcast at Stafford share University proud to be staffs proud to be us [Music]