Art, Algorithms, and Creative Decline: Not Enough STEAM-Power For Educational ReformIn this article we’ll look at the long-term decline of creativity in education, just at a time when employers are going to value those ‘human’ attributes even more.IMPACT OF AI ON EDUCATIONIn the preceding articles in this series, we saw that creativity is perhaps the single most important and unique trait of being a human and how it is essential, because of mental health benefits and future employment requirements, that creativity permeates education and is not squeezed out of the timetable and, indeed, students!However, notwithstanding that essential need, will creativity now work its way up the educational agenda?HUMANS BEING UNDER THREAT FROM TECHNOLOGY IS NOT A NEW PHENOMENONSocially, economically and technologically, our world has been transformed over history, frequently and repeatedly accompanied by widespread panic-stricken predictions of a Wellsian dystopian future and ‘the robots are coming ’.In the Victorian era there were major concerns over the impact on human interactions due to the advent of the telegraph, then in the 1950s there were similar worries about addiction to television and this has been followed by warnings about the world-wide-web…. social media ….. smartphones and now………AI: IT DOES MORE THAN JUST PASS EXAMSThe threats feel more powerful and pertinent today as the impact of AI will be pervasive , decimating many sectors and associated jobs, especially those which require repetition and data-based decision-making, because that’s what computers excel at. With the advances in AI, some commentators believe we have reached a turning point in our intellectual history as a species. ChatGPT can now interact with humans just like a human, in a conversational way, even speaking : challenging incorrect premises, admitting mistakes and rejecting inappropriate requests. For example, AI has the incredible capacity to support students beyond mere fact-finding and we have reached the point where good, and dare I say, plausible, essays and exam answers can be formulated and generated by the tech….in superspeedy time. OpenAI claims that GPT-4 can beat 90% of candidates in the bar exam and 88% of candidates in the Law School Admission Test in the US. These are exams which require cogitation. So, who will be able to tell the difference between a human and technology?The Turing Test is now under threat.Answers to some difficult questions are required: Why are we setting exams when this is something that AI can beat most of us at? Shouldn’t we instead be learning how to use the tech better and how to contribute in ways that augment the contribution of technology?“BEING CREATIVE IS ESSENTIAL TO US, IT’S ESSENTIAL TO OUR ECONOMY”This quote is from Ken Robinson, who we mentioned in the second article; he bemoaned the decline and lack of creativity in education in his fabulous, most-highly-viewed TED talk in history. His engaging presentation called ‘Do schools kill creativity?’ was based on the strategy report ‘All Our Futures’, which he had written for the Government. In it, he criticised education in the UK for too much ‘ conformity’ and ‘ standardisation’ , explaining how creativity and the arts have a lower academic status in schools and yet are so important.Another vocal critic is Python John Cleese who claims that he is ‘ depressed ’ by the fact that creativity, ‘ a subject of such enormous importance is not widely spoken about by teachers’ , exemplified by his ironic lament that he was never told he had a creative streak at school.Did anyone tell you that you might have had a creative streak?THE FIGURES BEHIND THE DECLINEThere has been a steady, consistent decline in the arts and creative subjects in academic curricula. This is reflected in the state sector by budget cuts and, as a result, there is less access for young people to orchestras, art studios, theatre etc. According to the Guardian, t...