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Ask HN: Do AI powered teachers exist?

• Makobado1 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• 0x0000000 4y ago
  Jill Watson was developed at GaTech to support their OMSCS program, though I haven't heard any updates in a while. https://pe.gatech.edu/blog/meet-jill-watson-georgia-techs-first-ai-teaching-assistant https://pe.gatech.edu/blog/meet-jill-watson-georgia-techs-fi... IIRC from my EdTech course, work is being done in this area but nothing to my knowledge at the "personalized instructor" level you're asking about here, with being able to explain concepts in simple terms and answer complex questions, but my experience predates GPT3 and the like.
• karmakurtisaani 4y ago
  Maybe not what you're after, but there are AIs that can analyse your chess games and tell you why you suck.
• qrian 4y ago
  I work in a relevant field. AI powered personalized instructor was always around the corner like how autonomous car was around the corner since 2016. And we understand less about ‘understanding’ than driving cars.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• endisneigh 4y ago
  An AI that could teach you anything would need to be generally intelligent.
• dmitrygr 4y ago
  There is a book on the topic: Diamond Age. Well worth a read. In reality, we're nowhere near there.
  • jdlshore 4y ago
    Also, one of the themes of the book is how different the outcomes are for Nell, who had a real narrator, and the children who had an artificial narrator. (Although the content was AI-generated in both cases.) But I agree, it’s a great book. One of my favorites.
• armchairhacker 4y ago
  What benefit is there for a personalized AI teacher, vs a set of good-quality online resources and an active QA board?
  • adversaryIdiot 4y ago
    ive never gotten into the habit of posting on any kind of board because usually "stupid" questions get deleted or flamed :S. Thus, i just read the online resources like you suggested and writhe in frustration of hard to answer questions. you know?
• throwaway675309 4y ago
  So you're missing a huge issue with something like this. Most other AI guided systems (which are basically all offshoots of large language models in some way) are used as tools by people who are already familiar with the subject matter at the AI manipulates, which means that they can essentially fact check it. Using the AI as a teacher implies that you are a student with virtually little to no understanding of the subject matter, which means you have no way to sanity check if the AI messes up and gives you incorrect information. You could end up with a deeply flawed understanding of the actual domain you wish to become an expert in.
  • ComplexSystems 4y ago
    This is just as much of an issue with real teachers.
    • 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
      real teachers you can question and determine if they're talking out of their asses or actually know. AIs will lie
  • anddt 4y ago
    This, given the current state of things I belive that AI can be used, at most, as a more engaging/interactive piece of material to be used with the supervision of an actual teacher. The conversation that a student might have with GPT3 model will be coherent most of the time (and probably factually correct as well) but supervision from a teacher will always be needed to catch those cases where incorrect info is returned by the model. I still believe that a bunch of AI-enabled edtech tools will bloom out in the foreseeable future, just nowhere near anything usable by the student withouth supervision.
• pr337h4m 4y ago
  Think Replit Ghostwriter fits the bill best. https://replit.com/site/ghostwriter https://replit.com/site/ghostwriter With the right prompts, it's pretty easy to get GPT-3 or its open source clones to explain complex jargon in layman terms, as seen here: https://twitter.com/jajoosam/status/1545364935395639299?t=FSOms75zgYii_DmGG19HZw&s=19 https://twitter.com/jajoosam/status/1545364935395639299?t=FS...
• anon2020dot00 4y ago
  Open AI Da Vinci playground is the closest there is at the moment