So, a machine can achieve about an average score on a SAT (scholastic assessment test). This is a cool achievement. What interests me more, though, is what this tells us about SATs.

Passing a SAT is presumably meant to show that someone is capable of something other than passing a SAT. But of course it doesn't. Just like many of the people that are forced to sit these barbaric, ill-considered things, this machine is no more capable of applying that knowledge than a toaster. We need to put an end to this kind of meaningless, inhuman, illusory and deeply harmful approach to assessment and we need to do it now. It kills motivation, kills learning, kills teaching, causes untold suffering, and it doesn't even do what it is supposed to do in the first place.