As an AI wonk, this would exactly the sort of project I would LOVE to work on. Deeply personal lesson plans? Easy auditing? Turning the last two decades of AI research into a critical public good? The opportunities are exciting.
...but as a former schoolteacher, hearing about yet another a "charter" school with no pedigree that immediately wants to teach rich kids, and only rich kids, while using a "creative" educational model that means hiring no teachers, is a song so familiar I can sing along.
Their entire educational model is glossed over and mentioned as being contracted out to "2 Hour Learning, Inc.", which seems to be Montressori But With AI.
What happens when they raise their prices 150%? 2000%?
AI is just Data With Attitude. Let's say mid-schoolyear, some kid doesn't like his AI teacher and floods the server room.
How will they recover from the teacher losing all their memory? They mention "cloud-based backups." Self-hosted, or is this yet another company whose contracts we're reliant on?
Trying to find independent reviews of the 2 Hour Learning software model doesn't pull up any papers. You'd think being this revolutionary they'd have a wealth of published papers, papers that are even drier than the usual research in education going over methodology and results.
But, curiously, they're jumping right into opening a charter school! Sounds like a way for 2 Hours Learning, Inc. to get public funds and the formative years of a few kids' lives in order to farm out their R&D.
As a professional educator, there are some things that AI can do with learning that is good. Teaching actual human children is emphatically NOT one of them. Yiiiiiikes.
Tech bros are notorious for low or absent social-emotional IQ so that part's not surprising.
The problem is this man's (and other techligarchs) pressure and persuade *others* to do BAD THINGS. Experiment with our country and on our people. There will be a course correction, but for now 💩
🤬😢
Hiring "guides" not teachers. “'Think of yourself as a brand consultant for 50 startups simultaneously, guiding diverse branding needs from business to personal expertise positioning,” reads one job listing."
A child is not a fucking startup. https://www.popsci.com/technology/ai-charter-school/
People have done experiments to show how training AIs on the output of other AIs degrades the quality of the AI after a few iterations. I suspect the same will apply here. It won't be obvious after just one iteration, but...
This is crazy. I work in a field that utilizes some AI and it often spits out the wrong answer. It takes someone with experience to recognize it’s wrong and fix it. Who in their right mind would FAFO with their child’s education?
CEOs gobble this shit up because they can bypass the Human Resources which is a massive cost center. Unfortunately when all the Human Resources are sick, uneducated, and unemployed it’s going to make buying the CEOs products and service challenging.
I think the article does not give a fair picture of what Unbound Academy is actually doing. There is a lot of human interaction going on as well as AI lessons: https://youtu.be/wJsnlSiyH3Y?si=2l-hIv0FGAr4N-gC
Not for everyone. I am not a fan of cell phones being allowed in the classroom, but I think a good, individualized AI lesson is better than a poor teacher-led lesson. But then I personally never had a good classroom experience with teachers so I am perhaps a bit biased against them.
AI has not been perfected to the point of not needing teachers for set-up, monitoring and unique human interactions. The founder of the highly successful on-line 'Khan Academy' believes human teachers will always make education far more successful in conjunction with computer learning.
Welcome to the future of the continual dumbing down of America. Sickens me to be honest. How many people/adults can look back and state "this teacher changed my life or changed my complete perspective of things". I know I can, and I sure wasn't the greatest pupil!
I turned out OK thanks to them.
Charter schools are a money making machine, their primary goal is making a profit. Our tax dollars are supporting private enterprise, while the wealthy make certain their children receive a quality education.
Our kids are sacrificial lambs.
OMG, AI is far to new a technology to be doing this. Also, do we not think it’s important for humans to interact with other humans? This feels very doomsday-ish. 😱
IXL and Khan academy are 💯 better than nut job home schooling moms. If the Ai is based on these 2, there is some hope. BUT there have to be teachers overseeing. Otherwise it’s just a money grab.
Comments
As an AI wonk, this would exactly the sort of project I would LOVE to work on. Deeply personal lesson plans? Easy auditing? Turning the last two decades of AI research into a critical public good? The opportunities are exciting.
But... (300 char limit)
What happens when they raise their prices 150%? 2000%?
What happens when they go out of business?
How will they recover from the teacher losing all their memory? They mention "cloud-based backups." Self-hosted, or is this yet another company whose contracts we're reliant on?
The problem is this man's (and other techligarchs) pressure and persuade *others* to do BAD THINGS. Experiment with our country and on our people. There will be a course correction, but for now 💩
Hiring "guides" not teachers. “'Think of yourself as a brand consultant for 50 startups simultaneously, guiding diverse branding needs from business to personal expertise positioning,” reads one job listing."
A child is not a fucking startup.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/ai-charter-school/
https://youtu.be/wJsnlSiyH3Y?si=2l-hIv0FGAr4N-gC
I turned out OK thanks to them.
People were defending it or even excited about it??
Our kids are sacrificial lambs.