happy 2025...plus a pilot AI activity

[James Proctor]

Dear EcoTypes collaborators, hello! I am planning a pilot AI activity with my students for 2025, and would sure appreciate if you tried it in your classes and offered input toward further refinement; see this expanded section on complementary EcoTypes, and read below for details.

One thing my students sometimes find challenging, given their relative homogeneity, is to fully understand/appreciate EcoTypes frameworks that differ from theirs, and how these ideological differences may play out in the context of actual environmental issues and policies. (I suspect this skill may become even more relevant with our new presidential administration in 2025...)

I've designed a number of EcoTypes resources, such as the followup MCJD form and EcoTypes personae, to help students better understand the systematic differences that emerge via EcoTypes. But I wondered whether AI could also assist??...and my experiments to date seem promising.

As you know, students learn not only their EcoType, but their complementary EcoType, via their survey report. Though "complementary" sounds like two puzzle pieces that nicely fit together, that's not exactly what complementarity means! A quick summary is in the Complementarity section of the EcoTypes page. This is where I decided to add the pilot AI activity, also pasted at bottom, as it ties directly into a student's complementary EcoType.

Please have a look, feel free to try it in your classes, and encourage your students to be in touch via the question form on what they experienced, so that we can work together to improve this activity in future.

Thank you, and happy 2025! 

(A reminder to work with me to assign a group code if you plan to use the EcoTypes survey this winter/spring.)

Regards,

Jim P. 

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In this activity you will engage in dialogue with an AI chatbot you have trained to converse as if it were your complementary EcoType. We will use ChatGPT for this pilot activity, but feel free to use other AI platforms and let us know how they worked.

Here are the steps:

1. Determine the Place, Action, and Knowledge theme characteristics of your complementary EcoType, following “What is my complementary EcoType?” above.
• In the example above, the complementary EcoType (Earth Action _(N)) includes nonhuman Place, big Action, and new Knowledge.
• The EcoTypes themes page calls these characteristics “attractors,” as they represent compelling, idealized, statistically derived features. You and your complementary EcoType are basically attracted to opposite things.
2. Next, remind yourself which four EcoTypes axes correspond to each EcoTypes theme.
• (Remember, the three EcoTypes themes statistically summarize differences found in responses to all twelve EcoTypes axes; each theme gathers four axes into one summary measure.)
• On the themes page you’ll read a summary narrative of each attractor, with links to all four related axes. For instance, the Place theme narratives include links to Aesthetics, Ecosystems, Ethics, and Nature.
3. Now, go back to your survey results, and look for one or two axes for each theme in which you expressed the strongest position (close to +1 or –1). Now, go to those axes and copy the statements that represent the position opposite yours.
• For instance, if your complementary EcoType is Earth Action _(N), you are interested in the Place theme, and your survey score on Ethics was +1, aligning with the right pole (“Since we are people, it’s justifiable to value nature for how it serves human needs”), you would copy the opposing statement, “It is shortsighted for people to manage nature with only human interests in mind.”
• When you are done you will have a list of 3-6 EcoTypes statements with which you most strongly disagree! You will use these in the next step to train your chatbot. It’s easiest to copy/paste them into a single document (including quotation marks to clarify), then you’ll paste all statements at once into ChatGPT as detailed below.
4. You are almost ready to chat with an AI companion representing your complementary EcoType! First, we recommend you sign up (free) for ChatGPT.
• Click the Sign Up button on the above link, where you can enter an email/password, or sign up immediately via Google, Microsoft, or Apple services.
• This step is not required for the below, but will help you readily save and retrieve your conversations…handy for educational uses.
5. OK, login to ChatGPT and get started! You’ll first inform the chatbot of your desired conversation, then train it to take on the role of your complementary EcoType via the statements you copied. Here are some recommendations:
• Start with an overview statement like this (feel free to modify): “I need to practice an environmental conversation with someone who disagrees with me on basically everything. Can you help me prepare for it by role-playing with me? I will train you by sharing some statements they strongly agree with. Then you and I can have a pretend conversation. The goal of the conversation is to understand each other, not necessarily to agree on anything.”
• ChatGPT will respond accordingly, and give you the opportunity to enter the statements representing your complementary EcoType. It is recommended that you tell ChatGPT you’ll enter each in quotes, so that ChatGPT knows clearly that they represent positions with which you do not personally agree.
• If you have copied/pasted the complementary EcoTypes statements into a single document, you can paste all of them into ChatGPT at once (remember the quotes!), or you can enter a statement into ChatGPT and then add a line break (shift-return) to enter multiple statements at once.
6. Now you will engage in dialogue with your chatbot! Feel free to try out multiple conversations, or multiple sessions; here are some ideas for starters.
• Once you have trained the chatbot, they will say something like this: “Got it! I’ll take on the perspective of someone who strongly agrees with these statements. Let me know when you’re ready to start the role-play conversation, and feel free to set the scene or context for our discussion.”
• You can then follow their recommendation; here is one example: “Let’s say we are discussing our priority environmental policies for 2025 in the realm of climate change. Feel free to begin!” It may be best to focus on a particular environmental issue or policy, to bring out your differences more clearly.
• ChatGPT may initially say something that’s pretty close to one or more of the complementary EcoTypes statements with which they were trained. You can then probe what they say more deeply, perhaps by sharing how you feel differently, or by offering a summary of what you hear. Give this time!: see if you can more clearly understand, perhaps even appreciate, your differences. See where ChatGPT goes with expressing their own position, or how well they seem to understand yours.
• Important!: make sure to explore all Place, Action, and Knowledge dimensions of your complementary EcoType. Say, if they start by discussing Action dimensions of your topic, you can move the conversation toward Place and Knowledge dimensions. For instance, ask them a question connecting one of your chosen Place or Knowledge axes to your topic. Or, you could make a general statement you agree with that connects Place or Knowledge with your topic, then see how they respond.
• Remember that the actual names of EcoTypes axes (e.g., Nature) and themes (e.g., Place) may not be fully understood by ChatGPT in the way they are used in EcoTypes, so be concrete in your wording.
• When you have fully explored your differing Place, Action, and Knowledge dimensions of the topic you discussed, you are done! If you have logged in to ChatGPT, your transcript will be saved, and you can study or copy it for future use.
• Do you wish to initiate another conversation, perhaps on another environmental issue you care about? Then you can compare your conversations.
7. Make sure to give yourself time at the end to reflect on your conversation(s).
• How did it feel to chat with an AI bot? How well did they express positions that differ from yours? How well did they seem to understand you?
• What dimensions of the environmental issue or policy you discussed were significant in your conversation? Can you imagine how these dimensions may be significant in the real world?
• What might be challenging for you, personally, in engaging in such conversations across huge difference? Did chatting with a chatbot make you feel more confident in actually having such conversations with a real person?
• Go back to the theme of complementarity introduced above: what did you learn about opposing Place, Knowledge, and Action attractors, and how, in Bohr’s words, “opposites are complementary”?
• If you are doing this exercise in a class, your instructor may give you other prompts to reflect and write on.
• Remember also to complete the question form with any thoughts you have on this pilot activity!…thank you.

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