Supposedly, Microsoft is integrating ChatGPT artificial intelligence technology into its search results. I’m not sure how far along the tech giant is in this process, but what I’m seeing so far is not impressive.
Just for yuks, I posed the following query to Microsoft’s Bing search engine: “What is causing the breakdown in discipline in Virginia public schools?”
Here was the answer:
According to a report by Bacon’s Rebellion, the root causes of disproportionate exclusionary discipline in Virginia public schools are bias and schools and their principals and teachers not aligned with progressive thinking¹. A 2020 report by Virginia Commonwealth University and Penn State found that school segregation by race and income was deepening in Virginia and that Central Virginia, including the Richmond metro area, reported “severe school segregation”³. Implicit bias is heavily implicated as a contributing factor when we analyze the causes of racial disproportionality in school discipline⁴.
Wait, what? According to Bacon’s Rebellion (!!!), of all sources, disproportionate application of discipline is due to “bias” and “non-alignment with progressive thinking?”
The query linked to a post by Jim Sherlock. Bing’s summary was pretty much the diametric opposite of what Sherlock wrote. As for the rest of the response… don’t get me started.
No mention of any of the multitude of other reasons that Sherlock and I have cited as reasons for the decline in discipline. Come to think of it, Bing didn’t even answer the question I asked. Rather than address the causes of the decline in school discipline, it answered a woke question I didn’t ask: What accounts for racial disparities in discipline?
Perhaps this response was a bizarre fluke. Or perhaps Microsoft’s algorithms are impregnated with leftist bias. I don’t know. Let’s just say for now that I don’t give high marks to the current incarnation of Bing’s natural English language search tool.
— JAB
Source: Conversation with Bing, 4/15/2023(1) School Discipline – Part 5 – How and When Democrats Broke Virginia …. https://www.baconsrebellion.com/wp/school-discipline-part-5-how-and-when-democrats-broke-virginia-public-schools/ Accessed 4/15/2023.
(2) Desegregation in Public Schools – Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/desegregation-in-public-schools/ Accessed 4/15/2023.
(3) Racial Disproportionality in School Discipline: Implicit Bias is …. https://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/article/racial-disproportionality-school-discipline-implicit-bias-heavily-implicated Accessed 4/15/2023.
(4) Virginia moves forward on school discipline reforms. https://publicintegrity.org/education/virginia-moves-forward-on-school-discipline-reforms/ Accessed 4/15/2023.
(5) Statistics & Reports | Virginia Department of Education. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports Accessed 4/15/2023.
(6) Virginia Compilation of School Discipline Laws and Regulations – ed. https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/sites/default/files/discipline-compendium/Virginia%20School%20Discipline%20Laws%20and%20Regulations.pdf Accessed 4/15/2023.
