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You can use an AI for learning if you go beyond treating it as a machine for cheating on your homework, and instead think of it as a 1:1 tutor. Imagine the AI
by morsch 4y ago
You can use an AI for learning if you go beyond treating it as a machine for cheating on your homework, and instead think of it as a 1:1 tutor.
Imagine the AI having a teaching curriculum that it tends to go through, but in a conversational manner that invites the student (or a group of students) to ask questions, go on tangents, etc. I think that's what he has in mind.
And it's easy to get excited about. I wouldn't call it studying, but I did have some enlightening conversations about cooking and baking with ChatGPT.
That said, I found the article quite breathless and one-sided. For example, he's obviously convinced about the AI teacher thing, but only mentions the fact checking requirement in a half sentence aside: AI makes up stuff, and I'm not sure having to double check basically everything your school teacher tells you makes for a good learning environment, even if it's a good life lesson.
Also, leading every paragraph with an emoji is kind of obnoxious.
- PeterisP 4y agoWe can certainly imagine that (e.g. The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson is a good example of such a system), however, this is not what we are going through now. The currently built systems mess up the pedagogical tools and curricula we have, but do not yet provide an equivalent or better replacement, so at least in the short term it does make learning worse. Also, if someone can use a chatbot for exploring material does not mean that this is a good pedagogical tool for that - one of the functions that grading has in pedagogy is motivation to nudge learners to actually do the work, and that is a valuable function; expecting people to self-motivate for self-guided education will work for some but will completely fail many those learners who most need education.