THE POST-COVID 19 ERA, CHAT BOTS, AND THE HOMOGENIZATION OF EDUCATION: PLURALISM AS AN EPISTEMIC VIRTUE EXEMPLIFIED BY MATHEMATICS EDUCATION.

This paper aims to raise awareness about a potential harmful consequence of teaching adaptations due to the Covid-19 pandemic and advanced AI-powered chat bots in the context of large language models. As video lectures might undermine pluralism in mathematics, we argue that such developments could be harmful for mathematical practice and society at large. We argue that the mathematical undergraduate curriculum should not be too hard codified and formalized via an abuse of online teaching tools. In order to show why a plurality of research practices constitutes a great resource for mathematical progress, we will discuss a historical situation regarding the developments of the Tripos in Cambridge. We will also discuss analogies with economics and ideas on mathematical pluralism and productive ambiguity. Finally, we suggest that pluralism in education may be desirable in other fields too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]