Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

One lesson you learn reading John Stuart Mill's autobiography is how effective it can be when you learn by teaching others. As a sometime teacher, I can personally attest to the value in it. So it makes sense that using ChatGPT is a student, rather than a teacher, might help people learn that much better. That's the proposal Philippa Hardman discusses in this article. I have just one issue with it: why would I. as a student, want to teach a computer? What's my motivation? If I'm teaching my little brother, like Mill, I can get why I would need to do it. But ChatGPT doesn't need me to teach it, and wouldn't care whether I did or didn't.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Oct 08, 2026 6:16 p.m.

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