Deep Background: Using AI as a Co-Reasoning Partner, with Mike Caulfield

Mike Caulfield shares about using AI as a co-reasoning partner and his Deep Background tool on episode 590 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

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Quotes from the episode

Critical thinking problems with students turn out to be critical doing problems.

-Mike Caulfield

AI doesn’t naturally think in terms of provenance, in terms of how it got this piece of information. It’s a little bit of a bolt on afterthought.

-Mike Caulfield

Searching for information is a journey. How can we get the benefits of AI but still preserve that feeling of a journey?

-Mike Caulfield

I’m working on this issue of follow ups with AI. It is magic to get students to think of these responses as not a single transaction. They’re coaching the AI through a process, not to get a specific answer that they want, but to look at the sorts of sources that matter for the question.

-Mike Caulfield

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Resources

• Deep Background: A “Superprompt” to change the way you use LLMs (checkplease.neocities.org)

• Reading the Room with SIFT Toolbox (mikecaulfield.substack.com/p/reading-the-room-…)

• New SIFT Toolbox Release (Substack) (mikecaulfield.substack.com/p/new-sift-toolbox-…)

• SIFT Method (The Four Moves) (hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves)

• Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online, by Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg (amazon.com/Verified-Straight-Better-Decisions-…)

• Interview with Mike Caulfield on Deep Background (AACE Review) (aace.org/review/caulfield-ai)

• Is the LLM Response Wrong, or Have You Just Failed to Iterate It, by Mike Caulfield (mikecaulfield.substack.com/p/is-the-llm-respon…)

• Episode 492: Verified with Mike Caulfield on Teaching in Higher Ed (teachinginhighered.com/podcast/verified-with-m…)

• Starlight Bowl in San Diego (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlight_Bowl_(San_Diego))

• Sound of Music (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Music)

• “Everything Could Have Been a Huge Disaster”: Nathan Fielder on Making ‘The Rehearsal’ Season 2 (rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/n…)

• It Runs Through Me (youtu.be/M1N_wbhAfQ4?si=uwSIbbZIDIEW2iVn), Tom Misch (feat. De La Soul)

• Tom Misch: Tiny Desk Concert (youtu.be/IUMTaAQ43lY?si=QG9r8ltg4PtYYRFA)

• Me Myself and I (youtu.be/fG9lFewfGEs?si=eU9eOXSOMRWMz0kW), De La Soul (1989)

• The Magic Number (youtu.be/0Yy7A74o8gQ?si=OFvXH4r-oV9OOhIW), De La Soul (1989)

• Reasonable People with Tom Stafford (tomstafford.substack.com)

• Pétanque (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A9tanque)

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