6 ms·

AI will continue to stratify education. The typical student will get AI generated course content by the cheapest models. Other children will spend $1000s/mont

by jjmarr 11mo ago

AI will continue to stratify education. The typical student will get AI generated course content by the cheapest models. Other children will spend $1000s/month on multimodal AI tutors spinning up Python code to check their math homework. Those students will easily surpass others without individualized support.

throwawaysleep 11mo ago
I kind of wonder whether we are past the point where waiting to be trained is feasible.
- sirsau 11mo ago
  What do you mean by that?
ToValueFunfetti 11mo ago
This counts on there being more juice to squeeze out of learning than I think actually exists. The people currently spending $1000s/month on real tutors are probably learning at ~90% of their potential. An idealized AI might push that to 100%, but the people who can't afford tutors or college are going to see greater benefit from even the cheapest models. That scenario results in decreasing stratification.
palmotea 11mo ago
> AI will continue to stratify education. > The typical student will get AI generated course content by the cheapest models. > Other children will spend $1000s/month on multimodal AI tutors spinning up Python code to check their math homework. Those students will easily surpass others without individualized support. The better-off children whose parents are "spend[ing] $1000s/month" will get real teachers who are people, not fancier AIs. I mean look at food: The lower classes are eating industrially-processed McDonald's food, the upper classes are not eating more expensive but still industrially-processed stuff from McDonald's, they're eating organic, locally grown stuff from the farmer's market (which used to be the standard for food for everyone).
- jjmarr 11mo ago
  Technology is still involved. Good food is refrigerated and bad food is frozen, because it's cheaper to freeze as that preserves food indefinitely. This is true even at a farmer's market.
chemotaxis 11mo ago
I promise you that students from wealthy families will continue to get human tutors for the foreseeable future. And it will have nothing to do with whether an AI can beat a human on a test or not.
- disqard 11mo ago
  History shows that you are right: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/sunday-review/human-contact-luxury-screens.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/sunday-review/human-conta... This pattern has recurred in every era where "technology will disrupt X" -- the affluent pay to "opt out" of the ersatz tech-supported version of X, while people of fewer means have no choice but to put up with it.
- jjmarr 11mo ago
  I've had human tutors and a well-equipped AI, e.g. Deep Research-like, can often be better. But an AI tutor at that level can be more expensive than humans. An hour of deep research with a SOTA model that has hundreds of thousands of context tokens is going to be much more than $80.
  - chemotaxis 11mo ago
    Again, I don't think this is about doing better. This is like arguing that a Casio watch is better than Patek Philippe. Wealth buys you is access and that's what it's often used for. Personal trainer, personal banker, personal tutor, personal doctor instead of waiting in urgent care. It doesn't matter that YouTube yoga is great, it's still less dignified. It's what poor people do.

by jjmarr 11mo ago

throwawaysleep 11mo ago

I kind of wonder whether we are past the point where waiting to be trained is feasible.

sirsau 11mo ago
What do you mean by that?

ToValueFunfetti 11mo ago

This counts on there being more juice to squeeze out of learning than I think actually exists. The people currently spending $1000s/month on real tutors are probably learning at ~90% of their potential. An idealized AI might push that to 100%, but the people who can't afford tutors or college are going to see greater benefit from even the cheapest models. That scenario results in decreasing stratification.

palmotea 11mo ago

> AI will continue to stratify education. > The typical student will get AI generated course content by the cheapest models. > Other children will spend $1000s/month on multimodal AI tutors spinning up Python code to check their math homework. Those students will easily surpass others without individualized support. The better-off children whose parents are "spend[ing] $1000s/month" will get real teachers who are people, not fancier AIs. I mean look at food: The lower classes are eating industrially-processed McDonald's food, the upper classes are not eating more expensive but still industrially-processed stuff from McDonald's, they're eating organic, locally grown stuff from the farmer's market (which used to be the standard for food for everyone).

jjmarr 11mo ago
Technology is still involved. Good food is refrigerated and bad food is frozen, because it's cheaper to freeze as that preserves food indefinitely. This is true even at a farmer's market.

chemotaxis 11mo ago

I promise you that students from wealthy families will continue to get human tutors for the foreseeable future. And it will have nothing to do with whether an AI can beat a human on a test or not.

disqard 11mo ago
History shows that you are right: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/sunday-review/human-contact-luxury-screens.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/sunday-review/human-conta... This pattern has recurred in every era where "technology will disrupt X" -- the affluent pay to "opt out" of the ersatz tech-supported version of X, while people of fewer means have no choice but to put up with it.
jjmarr 11mo ago
I've had human tutors and a well-equipped AI, e.g. Deep Research-like, can often be better. But an AI tutor at that level can be more expensive than humans. An hour of deep research with a SOTA model that has hundreds of thousands of context tokens is going to be much more than $80.
- chemotaxis 11mo ago
  Again, I don't think this is about doing better. This is like arguing that a Casio watch is better than Patek Philippe. Wealth buys you is access and that's what it's often used for. Personal trainer, personal banker, personal tutor, personal doctor instead of waiting in urgent care. It doesn't matter that YouTube yoga is great, it's still less dignified. It's what poor people do.