disorientation and exploration

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” —Father John Culkin (1967) A Schoolman’s Guide to Marshall McLuhan

Disorientation and exploration are essential for human learning. By using Generative AI (GPT/LLM) are we bypassing these two stages of learning in search of efficiency and robotic productivity?

“John Nosta, founder of the NostaLab think tank, says AI trains humans to think backward by providing answers before they understand.” — link via Archiv.Today

Nosta believes AI is quietly reshaping how people think, especially at work.
Human cognition, he said, usually follows a familiar path: confusion, exploration, tentative structure, and finally confidence. AI flips that sequence.
“With AI, we start with structure,” he said. “We start with coherence, fluency, a sense of completeness, and afterwards we find confidence.”
That inversion creates a powerful illusion. Because AI-generated answers sound polished and authoritative, people often accept them immediately — without doing the harder work of questioning, exploring, or fully understanding them, he said.
“Coming to the answer first is an inversion of human cognitive process,” Nosta said. “That’s antithetical to human thought.”

In 2007 I wrote about the role of disorientation in learning based on the work of Marilyn Taylor who stated that disorientation is a natural state in formal education.

Stage 1 – Disorientation: The learner is presented with an unfamiliar experience or idea which involves new ideas that challenge the student to think critically about his/her beliefs and values. The learner reacts by becoming confused and anxious. Support from the educator at this point is crucial to the learner’s motivation, participation and self-esteem. —Marilyn Taylor in Making Sense of Adult Learning.

I think that disorientation is also an important aspect of networked and social learning. I proposed in 2007 that given the rise of connected global networks that we would have more frequent periods of disorientation and longer periods of exploration. Finding ways to explore is becoming crucial with AI black boxes and resulting AI slop permeating our digital spaces. Exploration is a key part of personal knowledge mastery.

In a new understanding of my confusion I said that perhaps we need the shock of confusion to move toward Aporia in order to wake up [The aporetic turn refers to an authentic and legitimate domain of transition where we know what we don’t know —Cynefin]. If we are never confused/disorientated, will we lose that ability to make sense, especially in the Complex and Chaotic domains?

In Broken Images

He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images.

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact;
Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

—Robert Graves (1885) In Broken Images