"...it is the aesthetics and modes of intellectual engagement that remains, imprinted, along with a desire to mimic." Students are inspired to emulate those whom they admire; that is a fundamental essence of the learning process. My children had the opportunity to be taught by teachers who were not only passionate about their subject matter, but whom they truly admired as individuals. My daughter's literature teacher was also a talented poet, writer, and mother who infused a passion for language and books in her students. My son's Arthurian Legend teacher is fluent in several ancient languages, practices falconry, and forges swords. Teachers like these spark true and lasting desire for learning whereas AGI is devoid of soul, passion, and purpose. Thanks for this excellent piece Erik!
I think people radically overestimate the importance of *what's transmitted* in teaching instead of how *it's transmitted* and these are all great examples of that.
Also, as a parent who looked for an actual tutor for months, hundreds calls, never found someone willing to do it, and finally had to settle on khan academy plus a zoom tutor on math from an agency providing zoom teachers for homeschoolers—good luck finding an actual human tutor who is willing to tutor in person.
They could die out just because humans don’t want to work that job, not because the demand isn’t there.
Well, first AGI needs to happen. And I strongly suspect that the current approach to AI—which is already running into the area of diminishing returns, while simultaneously requiring ever more amounts of input and energy—will not deliver this.
Nevertheless, suppose AGI happens and humans still greatly prefer human teachers, despite the fact that AGI teachers will be superior (otherwise it’s not true AGI). Then the humans using AGI teachers will outcompete those using human teachers. Over time, AGI tutoring will become the default (if AGI lets us, obviously…;-).
It’s odd that a major point of The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, which inspired so many tech entrepreneurs, is that an AI tutor doesn’t work without direct human interaction. This is the contrast between Nell’s experience and that of her army.
It was in the tone of the teachers voice and the body language where I would as a student pick up what would be on the test. Their passion for the topic often became my passion for learning. Will AI ever get to that point? The true love of the topic?
Another note on book stores, I swear that books actually call out to me in the store. It is the human to human, human to book connection that I love. When I first got on to TIP all I could think of was what a great book many of your posts would make (along with Naughton's art). What a wonderful historical statement of our times it would be for future generations. The Printed Word - not so easily altered.
I thought it was mostly for porn but it looks like they banned it. But did they fully? The consensus seems to be that it's used by teenagers (which explains why no one ever knows anyone who uses it) for "purposes unknown." https://twitter.com/jenny____ai/status/1828910702649848164
I'm not so much sure it's really social as it is mildly entertaining in the way chatbots can be, and it happens to be the one popular among teens since, well, it's less dry than a ChatGPT window.
Great points on such an important topic! My hope is that AI can help "break" our current lecture-centric, content-centric and generally very boring educational approach and free up teachers and students to have more meaningful interactions.
What I noticed in my many years in academia is that courses require a huge amount of upfront work, and that upfront work is taken as necessary or granted. And the more upfront work a course requires, the less dynamic you can be when teaching, since you're locked in. It would require a lot of work to, say, switch topics for a day, or cover something else that has come up that's interesting, or so on. I'm hopeful that AI can have an actual positive effect on teaching by simply breaking up the necessity of always having to have course material prepared 100% of time for any topic you cover.
As a teacher, I see a lot of potential in AI for content creation. I spend a non-trivial amount of time either searching for or creating work to practice skills, and if it were possible to get AI to create that, it would free up my time to plan more dynamic lessons, tailor things to specific students, etc.
I read the title, I imagined what the content was about, and saved it up for later when I felt like I might need to read something of the sort, and I was right. Texts like this are necessary from time to time, we need that validation and reassurance, and you write it in a way that makes it sound fresh and believable. Hope is a tricky thing these days but I feel oddly encouraged not to stop entertaining it. Great piece.
Great post! I definitely agree that human tutoring will remain the favored version of individualized learning. However, I worry about the future where those AI tutors are cheaper than the human ones. It feels like a divide between those who can afford the best human tutors versus those who can only afford the AI ones would form quickly, same as today with private and public school. While human tutors will certainly remain the go-to for those who can afford it, a hallucinating bot may become the norm regardless. I hope the AI bots are pretty solid, for the sake of those whose kids end up using them.
If the AI is good, this could be an incredibly good thing! Giving more people access to something even close to human tutoring could have great benefits. But overall, the fact that humans will remain the better option does not necessarily mean that they will remain the most common one. Despite the great experience of going to a bookstore, a lot of people will still buy their books online out of convenience.
Regarding the impact of Amazon. I ran a bookstore from 1977-82. If Amazon was online back then we could of increased our sales by putting the books up online and probably wouldnt of needed to even have a bricks and mortar store. We would of made way more money.
Its only booksellers and everybody else that doesnt want to keep up with lifes changes that will suffer.
I had two mechanics and one just complained that he couldnt fix cars anymore because of the computerization, the other guy took classes and always had a new certificate on his wall showing his new mastery of the new requirements of car repair.
But I cant even imagine my life without that store, during those years I met some of my best friends who just wandered in the store, that would of never happened with the new online sales world.
There were no starbucks back then and very few "coffee shops" so we attracted people who now hang out at a Starbucks for hours. Alot of these folks werent really into books it was the only place to hang.
It was annoying too have these knuckleneads hanging out for hours never buying anything.
"There are no solutions, only tradeoffs" Thomas Sowell
It seems likely that humans born in a post-AGI world may find AGI tutors familiar enough to prefer AGI over humans. We can see early signs of it in the recent popularity of NotebookLM 'tutor'.
But yes, present day humans will likely prefer humans due to that same familiarity bias.
This. The author’s comments may apply quite well to current adults viewpoints but it doesn’t account for how children who natively grow up with that technology will view it. I find low-res images/memes/audio horrible but my kids love all the social media interactions that utilize them. So it could be for how the next generation interact and learn from AI tutors.
Good piece. To be impactful the AI tutor doesn't have to be Aristotle. They just have to be better than the median teacher. It's not so much an exercise is providing an Aristotle to every student, as raising the floor of educational quality.
You have a good point. I once had a teacher that was horribly monotonal. I never knew what he thought was important. Worst teacher ever. Now that I think about it AI had him beat!
The best tutors help us grow not just by teaching us, but by inspiring us individual to individual — and that one-on-one, human-to-human, individual connection seems to me to be an enormous part of why "aristocratic tutoring" works so much better than even small-group classes taught by human teachers. The mentors I've learned the most from weren't just people who knew a lot, they were people I deeply admired.
We learn from tutors not just because of what they know, but who they are. An AI is no one.
"...it is the aesthetics and modes of intellectual engagement that remains, imprinted, along with a desire to mimic." Students are inspired to emulate those whom they admire; that is a fundamental essence of the learning process. My children had the opportunity to be taught by teachers who were not only passionate about their subject matter, but whom they truly admired as individuals. My daughter's literature teacher was also a talented poet, writer, and mother who infused a passion for language and books in her students. My son's Arthurian Legend teacher is fluent in several ancient languages, practices falconry, and forges swords. Teachers like these spark true and lasting desire for learning whereas AGI is devoid of soul, passion, and purpose. Thanks for this excellent piece Erik!
I think people radically overestimate the importance of *what's transmitted* in teaching instead of how *it's transmitted* and these are all great examples of that.
As a private tutor, I approve this message (and very much hope it’s true for my medium-term employment prospects!)
Also, as a parent who looked for an actual tutor for months, hundreds calls, never found someone willing to do it, and finally had to settle on khan academy plus a zoom tutor on math from an agency providing zoom teachers for homeschoolers—good luck finding an actual human tutor who is willing to tutor in person.
They could die out just because humans don’t want to work that job, not because the demand isn’t there.
Well, first AGI needs to happen. And I strongly suspect that the current approach to AI—which is already running into the area of diminishing returns, while simultaneously requiring ever more amounts of input and energy—will not deliver this.
Nevertheless, suppose AGI happens and humans still greatly prefer human teachers, despite the fact that AGI teachers will be superior (otherwise it’s not true AGI). Then the humans using AGI teachers will outcompete those using human teachers. Over time, AGI tutoring will become the default (if AGI lets us, obviously…;-).
It’s odd that a major point of The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, which inspired so many tech entrepreneurs, is that an AI tutor doesn’t work without direct human interaction. This is the contrast between Nell’s experience and that of her army.
It was in the tone of the teachers voice and the body language where I would as a student pick up what would be on the test. Their passion for the topic often became my passion for learning. Will AI ever get to that point? The true love of the topic?
Another note on book stores, I swear that books actually call out to me in the store. It is the human to human, human to book connection that I love. When I first got on to TIP all I could think of was what a great book many of your posts would make (along with Naughton's art). What a wonderful historical statement of our times it would be for future generations. The Printed Word - not so easily altered.
Thanks Erik
What do you make of the traction of Character?
I thought it was mostly for porn but it looks like they banned it. But did they fully? The consensus seems to be that it's used by teenagers (which explains why no one ever knows anyone who uses it) for "purposes unknown." https://twitter.com/jenny____ai/status/1828910702649848164
I'm not so much sure it's really social as it is mildly entertaining in the way chatbots can be, and it happens to be the one popular among teens since, well, it's less dry than a ChatGPT window.
Great points on such an important topic! My hope is that AI can help "break" our current lecture-centric, content-centric and generally very boring educational approach and free up teachers and students to have more meaningful interactions.
What I noticed in my many years in academia is that courses require a huge amount of upfront work, and that upfront work is taken as necessary or granted. And the more upfront work a course requires, the less dynamic you can be when teaching, since you're locked in. It would require a lot of work to, say, switch topics for a day, or cover something else that has come up that's interesting, or so on. I'm hopeful that AI can have an actual positive effect on teaching by simply breaking up the necessity of always having to have course material prepared 100% of time for any topic you cover.
As a teacher, I see a lot of potential in AI for content creation. I spend a non-trivial amount of time either searching for or creating work to practice skills, and if it were possible to get AI to create that, it would free up my time to plan more dynamic lessons, tailor things to specific students, etc.
I read the title, I imagined what the content was about, and saved it up for later when I felt like I might need to read something of the sort, and I was right. Texts like this are necessary from time to time, we need that validation and reassurance, and you write it in a way that makes it sound fresh and believable. Hope is a tricky thing these days but I feel oddly encouraged not to stop entertaining it. Great piece.
What do you think about character.ai? This seems to be a case where people express a preference for AIs over humans right?
Great post! I definitely agree that human tutoring will remain the favored version of individualized learning. However, I worry about the future where those AI tutors are cheaper than the human ones. It feels like a divide between those who can afford the best human tutors versus those who can only afford the AI ones would form quickly, same as today with private and public school. While human tutors will certainly remain the go-to for those who can afford it, a hallucinating bot may become the norm regardless. I hope the AI bots are pretty solid, for the sake of those whose kids end up using them.
If the AI is good, this could be an incredibly good thing! Giving more people access to something even close to human tutoring could have great benefits. But overall, the fact that humans will remain the better option does not necessarily mean that they will remain the most common one. Despite the great experience of going to a bookstore, a lot of people will still buy their books online out of convenience.
Regarding the impact of Amazon. I ran a bookstore from 1977-82. If Amazon was online back then we could of increased our sales by putting the books up online and probably wouldnt of needed to even have a bricks and mortar store. We would of made way more money.
Its only booksellers and everybody else that doesnt want to keep up with lifes changes that will suffer.
I had two mechanics and one just complained that he couldnt fix cars anymore because of the computerization, the other guy took classes and always had a new certificate on his wall showing his new mastery of the new requirements of car repair.
But I cant even imagine my life without that store, during those years I met some of my best friends who just wandered in the store, that would of never happened with the new online sales world.
There were no starbucks back then and very few "coffee shops" so we attracted people who now hang out at a Starbucks for hours. Alot of these folks werent really into books it was the only place to hang.
It was annoying too have these knuckleneads hanging out for hours never buying anything.
"There are no solutions, only tradeoffs" Thomas Sowell
It seems likely that humans born in a post-AGI world may find AGI tutors familiar enough to prefer AGI over humans. We can see early signs of it in the recent popularity of NotebookLM 'tutor'.
But yes, present day humans will likely prefer humans due to that same familiarity bias.
This. The author’s comments may apply quite well to current adults viewpoints but it doesn’t account for how children who natively grow up with that technology will view it. I find low-res images/memes/audio horrible but my kids love all the social media interactions that utilize them. So it could be for how the next generation interact and learn from AI tutors.
Good piece. To be impactful the AI tutor doesn't have to be Aristotle. They just have to be better than the median teacher. It's not so much an exercise is providing an Aristotle to every student, as raising the floor of educational quality.
You have a good point. I once had a teacher that was horribly monotonal. I never knew what he thought was important. Worst teacher ever. Now that I think about it AI had him beat!
The best tutors help us grow not just by teaching us, but by inspiring us individual to individual — and that one-on-one, human-to-human, individual connection seems to me to be an enormous part of why "aristocratic tutoring" works so much better than even small-group classes taught by human teachers. The mentors I've learned the most from weren't just people who knew a lot, they were people I deeply admired.
We learn from tutors not just because of what they know, but who they are. An AI is no one.