Gizmodo Suggests Sam AI-Man Destroys the Mind of Youth.

November 28, 2025

This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.

If I were an ad sales person at Gizmodo, I would not be happy. I am all for a wall between editorial and advertising. I bet you did not know that I learned that basic rule when I worked at Ziff in Manhattan. However, writing articles that accuse a potential advertiser of destroying the minds of youth is unlikely to be forgotten. I am not saying the write up is not accurate, but I know that it is possible to write articles and stories that do not make a potential advertiser go nutso.

Gizmodo published “OpenAI Introduces ‘ChatGPT for Teachers’ to Further Destroy the Minds of Our Youth” to explain a new LexisNexis-type of play to get people used to their online product. OpenAI thinks the LexisNexis- or close variant model is a good way to get paying customers. Students in law school become familiar with LexisNexis. When and if they get a job, those students will use LexisNexis. The approach made sense when Don Wilson and his fellow travelers introduced the program. OpenAI is jumping on a marketing wagon pulled by a horse that knows how to get from A to B.

Have those laptops, tablets, and mobile phones made retail workers adept at making change? Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.

The Gizmodo article says:

ChatGPT for Teachers is designed to help educators prepare materials for their classes, and it will support Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requirements so that teachers and school staff can securely work with student data within the workspace. The company says the suite of tools for teachers will be available for free through June 2027, which is probably the point at which OpenAI will need to show that it can actually generate revenue and stick its hand out to demand payment from teachers who have become reliant on the suite of tools.

Okay, no big innovation here.

Gizmodo states:

There is already mounting evidence that relying on AI can erode critical thinking skills, which is something you’d like kids to be engaging in, at least during school hours. Other studies have shown that people “offload” the more difficult cognitive work and rely on AI as a shortcut when it’s available, ultimately harming their ability to do that work when they don’t have the tool to lean on. So what could go wrong giving those tools to both students and teachers? Seems like we’re going to find out.

Okay, but that headline looms over the Ivory soap conclusion to the article. In my opinion, I know exactly how this free AI will work. Students will continue to look for the easiest way to complete assigned tasks. If ChatGPT is available, students will find out if it works. Then students will use AI for everything possible so the students have more time for digging into linear algebra. (That’s a joke.) A few students will understand that other students will not do the assignments but will pay someone to do that work for them. That other person will be [a] a paramour, [b] a classmate who is a friend, [c] a classmate who responds to threats, or [d] ChatGPT-type services.

Test scores will continue to fall until a group of teachers create easier tests. Furthermore, like putting A/V systems for students to learn a foreign language in 1962, the technology works only if the student concentrates, follows the lesson attentively, writes notes, and goes through the listen and repeat mechanisms in the language lab. PCs, tablets, Chrome books, mobile phones, or AI work the same way. When students do not have the discipline to pay attention and put in the effort required to learn, the technology cannot compensate. It can, however, replace certain jobs so companies and co-workers do not have to compensate for those who lack basic skills, the discipline required to do the work, and the social skills needed to fit into an organization.

The myth that technology can replace traditional educational techniques is more nutso than the sales professionals who have to overcome ideas like “destroy the minds of youth.”

Net net: Sam AI-Man has some challenge ahead with this free ChatGPT. Want evidence of the impact of technology on the minds of legal professionals? Just check out some of the YouTubing lawyers. There you go.

Stephen E Arnold, November 28, 2024

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under AI, News, Training

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.