Teaching entirely by LLMs? Not likely. I think we will still need humans in the loop and humans to design the curriculum.
But I believe technology is the future of education. Instead of having many, many classes of like ~10-50 students with underpaid/overworked/mistreated teachers, some of who are much better than others, we rely on services like Khan Academy. Not even services with an AI, just pre-planned learning modules, and then we can keep a human tutor for those who need extra for whatever reason (e.g. curiosity, more help).
Many people think tools like Khan Academy are the lazy and less effective alternate to real teaching, and maybe they are now because some of them really suck. But online modules have the potential to be much better than even a group of engaged, in-person tutors. Not because an AI tutor is better, but because we want a standard, universal curriculum; and one curriculum for ~1mil+ students can be designed by the highest caliber (human) teachers and have highly-interactive (human-made) demos powered by computer programming.
Also, no matter how good the AI tutors are, 100% online learning is not the solution Students from pre-K to graduate school rely on not just the education, but the social component as well. Plus, many school kids only get their biggest meal from free school lunches, and parents don't have the time to keep their kids at home. So we should still have school to be in-person component even if students do all of the learning on the computer, with an online option for those who want it, but I guarantee many won't
In person school is definitely the answer. The real challenge is the student teacher ratio you mentioned.
I think the ideal is ~10:1 sorted by student performance/learning capacity increasingly for difficult subjects (so students form a cohesive classroom pace of subject material). Which will also give variance to friend groups if you sort students differently per subject.
AI tools will be great for public schools where its often 30-60:1. We still have to get past the 'confidently wrong' AI though.
The lure of LLMs in education is the expected novelty of instruction they can provide. It might be an aid to some students, the same way some students read books in their free time or learn to use the internet to look up answers. I don't expect much more, and the rest of it is a net negative IMO.
LLMs will be used like "reverse multiple choice questions", with heavily constrained LLMs silently penalizing students for making "mistakes" or probing subjects that they aren't "supposed to" know about. No matter how embedded LLMs are in the education process, there'll always be a human setting its course, and I don't think social dynamics will ever change because of this.
Also, the Q&A format with a machine will make older texts / instruction opaque to many of the brightest, they'll have to translate from machinese for it to be of any use. An entire generation aping a LLMs way of writing is also a death knell for a civilization and innovation. We're clearly past the point where we can convince most people that this LLM isn't alive.
It's good for ranking, which unfortunately will never go away (though could become more granular), and much better than standardized tests. And ensures that some students don't miss access to subjects and resources that others have because they're in different schools.
There would still be the ability for students to choose their own subjects, focus more/less on certain subjects, learn different concepts within subjects, etc. And a lot of niche subjects and branches. Like it would be an incredibly massive curriculum, especially since you are designing one for >1million students. By "standard and universal" I mean that every student gets the same resources.
> But I believe technology is the future of education. Instead of having many, many classes of like ~10-50 students with underpaid/overworked/mistreated teachers, some of who are much better than others, we rely on services like Khan Academy. Not even services with an AI, just pre-planned learning modules, and then we can keep a human tutor for those who need extra for whatever reason (e.g. curiosity, more help).
In other words, the future you believe in is one where we lock kids in a cubicle to stare at a screen all day in a warehouse, with a break for recess and lunch? Where the message is, we care so little that we can't even bother to allocate one real person to regularly talk to you?
I mean, if we’re talking about the hypothetical far future, who said anything about screens?
These AIs will be direct fed into our brains soon enough. Who knows or cares that the entity you’re talking to is an AI if it’s indistinguishable from a real person?
But I believe technology is the future of education. Instead of having many, many classes of like ~10-50 students with underpaid/overworked/mistreated teachers, some of who are much better than others, we rely on services like Khan Academy. Not even services with an AI, just pre-planned learning modules, and then we can keep a human tutor for those who need extra for whatever reason (e.g. curiosity, more help).
Many people think tools like Khan Academy are the lazy and less effective alternate to real teaching, and maybe they are now because some of them really suck. But online modules have the potential to be much better than even a group of engaged, in-person tutors. Not because an AI tutor is better, but because we want a standard, universal curriculum; and one curriculum for ~1mil+ students can be designed by the highest caliber (human) teachers and have highly-interactive (human-made) demos powered by computer programming.
Also, no matter how good the AI tutors are, 100% online learning is not the solution Students from pre-K to graduate school rely on not just the education, but the social component as well. Plus, many school kids only get their biggest meal from free school lunches, and parents don't have the time to keep their kids at home. So we should still have school to be in-person component even if students do all of the learning on the computer, with an online option for those who want it, but I guarantee many won't