CRITICAL THINKING VERSUS AI

By Mickey Skidmore, AMHSW, ACSW, FAASW

A strong case can be made that the most crucial aspect of Social Work education is the encouragement, cultivation and development of critical thinking — and recognising that this is a skill — perhaps the most significant resource in your toolbox for professional practice. In short, to be clear, this is teaching student’s “how” to think — not “what” to think. And to be even clearer, this is not something that AI has the capacity to do (not yet at least). Reinforcing this with professional ethics and practice standards aids in further guiding practitioners encountering a range of complexity with the clients they serve. And finally, embracing the value of critically reflecting on practice is the final and ongoing factor. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I believe this constitutes the super power of the Social Work profession.

The most significant challenge I face with students is the battle of the devices. It is difficult to compete for their attention with Mark Zuckerberg (or Tic Tok for that matter) in the classroom. While most of us would rather ignore it, increasingly more and more of us are staring at rectangular screens everyday in more and more venues. Despite the gift of extraordinary diversity, when engaging students with a task, more often than not, they (seemingly in unison) turn quickly to a screen as their first course of action in search of guidance or an answer rather than following the path of their own curiosity and creativity.

The following example highlights this. I would break the class to four or five smaller groups, with the instruction to converse and explore with each other what content or details they thought should be included in a bio-psycho-social assessment. As I meander from group to group, I encounter a laptop open to an AI program with the instructions typed in to formulate a response. I had to explain that I was not interested in what chatGP thought the answer to this might be. The purpose of this exercise was to tap into the diverse creativity within the group to stimulate their own critical thinking. One student noted that the comments from activities such as this (compared prior to AI) “all sound the same.” The comments are less stimulating because AI searches a finite amount of data with an algorithm which will result in a similar response rather than the unlimited creative potential of the students present.

Not only is this not critical thinking, it is actually NOT THINKING AT ALL! It is relying on an artificial knowledge source that can only provide partial or inadequate information in direct Social Work practice. Yet, this slippery slope began some time ago. When I was a young boy, I could tell you my mother’s phone number and address. Moreover, I could do the same with an emergency contact. I was taught this was a valuable and useful thing to know. However, today I’m sorry to say that I couldn’t tell you mother’s phone number — and on some days might even find it difficult to remember my own (as I rarely call myself). The reason is we’ve become (lazy) reliant on technology. While I may not remember my mother’s phone number, I do know where to find and retrieve it (still a good Social Work skill). So, while some of information I once thought was more crucial has been relegated to reference material — where I may or may not recall, but would be able to access a reference source to obtain the desired information. AI however, takes this slippery slope to a whole new level in an entirely different direction.

Beyond this, professors and educators on the front lines of University education have been facing other factors challenging the higher learning process for what has been occurring for some time now. And it often requires more than a single cup of coffee to unpack the issues they face. While not a comprehensive list, to sum up generally, the problems include: a high percentage of students that will not show up for class in person; scores of students with significant deficiencies with the English language; and the fact that cheating is not only rampant, but has become a big business unto itself. This is nothing short of a perfect storm that make matters worse — or at least significantly muddies the waters by artificial intelligence (AI).

Good, bad, right, wrong or indifferent … it is a systemic/structural reality that international student education is now baked into the economic cake of Australia. This editorial will not address the details of this reality except to point out that in general, international students pay approximately three times the tuition of a domestic student. Given this reality, many institutions of higher learning have faced pressures to gravitate to a business model, emphasising consumer satisfaction of the students; while the teaching ethos has increasingly become more of an afterthought. An unforeseen outcome of this sets the stage for alienating students and teachers. 

As a Social Worker, I have tremendous capacity to see more than one perspective or interpretation of any given issue at a time. The goal of educators aligns with the academic integrity of preparing students for practice in their chosen field. Whereas, (many) international students are looking first and foremost at the price tag rather than the educational process. Thus, their goal is to pay for the piece of paper — the certificate, the degree, over the educational training process. The befuddlement of educators is better understood with the recognition that the goals of these symbiotic cohorts may no longer be aligned — at least with past assumptions. As suggested previously, the emergence of AI into this dynamic only serves to complicate the matter further.

“Unless you’ve got rich parents or a scholarship, studying abroad in Australia isn’t the smartest investment.” Increasingly, international students are beginning to realise that the math simply doesn’t add up. “What you get in education, connections and career growth, doesn’t match the quality, prestige or cross-cultural interaction offered by other global institutions.”

It is unclear what dialectic may emerge from these two clashing perspectives. Broadly, my sense is that it is incumbent upon the University’s to take a lead and to get in front of this; providing clear instruction on what constitutes appropriate academic use of AI and how to use this tool in a manner that does not undermine academic integrity or professional ethics. However, the truth is — Universities are not there yet. Specific to Social Work education, I would like to see the emphasis of AI use in the domain of research for example, or identifying community resources in an area, and de-emphasised in direct practice overall. It is simply alarming to consider a new generation of Social Work practitioners with a “deer-in-the-headlights” expression in response to a client’s presenting situation, and then looking to a screen before responding to the them.

I acknowledge my clear bias in this conversation. I am unapologetic in my stance that critical thinking is far superior to anything AI has to offer (in direct practice). I am also clear that critical thinking will not always yield a perfect or desirable outcome. However, when applied in concert with ethical guidelines and practice standards, affords the most humane and empathetic effort to inequality; disenfranchisement; marginalisation and trauma — again currently well beyond the capacity of AI. 

In short, AI seems to me to be the antithesis of critical thinking and the core skills of direct Social Work practice.