“ To Be Rather Than To Seem”
By Erik Alfieri’ 09
Recently, I have been reflecting on a maxim shared by my wife that was a core tenet of her primary school education and has particular resonance during the current period of rapid technological change: esse quam videri –“ to be rather than to seem.” This line from Cicero reminded me of the classical education I received from Saint David’ s – the teaching of the whole person, prioritizing integrity and a grounding in a variety of disciplines. It seems particularly relevant today as many of us integrate AI in the workplace and schools grapple with AI’ s place in early education as well as its role in shaping ethical leaders of tomorrow.
For the past several years, one of the questions that has come up in one form or another within the Alumni Council has been about AI’ s place in the classroom. More than likely, many of us are wrestling with some derivative of that question at our places of work. The topic feels increasingly urgent as we race to leverage the technology during a moment in which technological advancement is measured in days or weeks as opposed to months or years.
It is hard to deny Large Language Models’( LLMs) value in driving tremendous efficiency and creating value when used thoughtfully in the workplace; however, there can be a real“ Catch 22” if improperly employed in service of volume over quality. Pitfalls seem particularly present with professionals early in their careers who are rising to meet a steep learning curve but have yet to fully develop critical judgement in their respective fields. While“ production” may outpace prior generations, without a grounding in critical thinking and a conviction to question outputs and verify information, they run the risk of producing what AI jargon is increasingly referring to as“ slop” – or error-prone, mass-produced content.
Many of us have probably been amused when Claude makes a very convincing argument about something we know to be false only to concede the point immediately when we point out its fallacy. However, without foundational knowledge on a topic, these mistakes can be easy to miss, and the tool can become as much of a challenge as it is a resource.
These dynamics have influenced how we have tried to balance our approach to AI in my place of work – thoughtfully defining our“ sandbox” of source data and emphasizing the need to rigorously vet conclusions and outputs. These constructs, defining the importance of primary source information and general intellectual curiosity, are critical parts of the Saint David’ s classical foundation that had such a positive impact on my early learning.
The tools available to Saint David’ s graduates may change, and the pace of that change may accelerate, but the tenets of a Saint David’ s education( academics, athletics, the arts, and spirituality) – which incidentally have seemed to work reasonably well since antiquity – are the very things that will prepare students for this dynamic modern age of creative destruction.
In a recent article for the Atlantic, Michael Clune, a professor at Ohio State University put it well:“ based on the available evidence, the skills that future graduates will most need in the AI era— creative thinking,
46 • Saint David’ s Magazine