this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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Even as it is now, I could see it being good for some kids.
I certainly could’ve benefitted from a guided, fully-self-paced curriculum. I was bored off my ass in high school.
Like this, you could teach an entire high school and have a teacher:student ratio of like 1:200. Really just need SMEs annd a big computer lab, and that’s it.
But it’s definitely not for everyone. Most kids need more hands-on, especially with new topics. And there has to be human oversight (humans writing exams/quizzes and intervening if the AI is incorrect or ineffective).
The issue isn't the approach, it's the accuracy. AI are statistical models. They're not designed to give right answers. They're designed to give believable answers, which area occasionally correct.
So who knows what these kids are learning. It could be ridiculous inaccuracies like Columbus peacefully discovering America.
Or that the Civil War was fought over states rights. To do what, AI? The right to do what?
The same could really be said about human teachers as well, though. An AI is frequently confidently wrong but so was my history teacher.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is a terrible idea. But we were already vulnerable to misinformation with classical schooling. To use your example, we WERE taught that Colombus discovered the Americas peacefully. It wasn't until I reached college that I learned the truth behind the discovery and colonization of the Americas, and I only even learned it then by doing my own history reading. Up until that point I had been taught that Thanksgiving was celebrated in memory of the happy-fun-get-along-times that were had between the settlers and the natives.
Kids are already taught ridiculous inaccuracies on purpose and while I hardly think an idea like this would improve that situation, I have to point out that at least accidental misinformation would be less objectively evil than what we already misinform kids about.
Your history teacher is sometimes confidently wrong because they are subject to the biases of their time and culture. AI is sometimes confidently wrong because it literally is incapable of evaluating information to assess its factuality. I know which one I think should be in charge of teaching children.
have you asked an AI how to bake a cake?
It’s a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake.
You gotta do the cooking by-the-book.
WHAT?! YEAHHHH SKEET SKEET
hold on, i gotta pick up some fear and a few bowls of unmarked cubes first
No, the value of a computer based education is that you don't need SME's on site. Instead, you could get away with one home office developing the lesson plans, then distributing their work across a state. Specialty graders could be hired to handle anything that the computer can't grade.
The schools themselves would just have enough teachers that are the equivalent of substitute teachers keeping order.