Good news! I've solved the education problem in the US and made it a doomsday topic

[Isaac]

Let me start this by saying, computer aided self-teaching is the most effective way to learn anything, except for maybe things like dance and music. That being said, human teachers lecturing and answering questions isn't as good as talking "one on one" with someone. Especially if that someone knows the subject and is willing to sit with you a few hours every week. Fast forward to 10 years from now and imagine that "one on one" session being with an artificial intelligence that could pass a touring test. That's the future of all education. No more teachers... no more books (unless they're e-books)...

So why is this in E&C? I think in a world where everyone gets an adaptable (to the student) education, we'll rapidly lose the need for human teachers.

I think Jeff posted a link to a story about how how a horse could see a car as making their lives better when it actually was making them obsolete. A lazy googling told me that we have about 3.5 million teachers in the US and yet there's still a teacher shortage. They make from 21K to 60K a year (USD). So my lazy math comes out to roughly $140,000,000,000 of income earned by teachers (3500000 x $40,000). With human teachers obsolete that puts 140 billion dollars going somewhere else every year! This is just in public schools.

I don't hate teachers, but I had some that hated their jobs. They were clearly there for just a paycheck and now that powerpoint and online testing has made its way into high schools, teaching has become even less human. Stealing the idea from Jeff's article, artificial teachers don' t have to outperform the best teachers. They just need to outperform the average teacher to be good enough to replace them all.

I think that's our inevitable future.

[Burlyman]

This will never happen because education is supposed to be self-taught and that's not what the elite members of society want, and people actually think school isn't completely stupid.

[vision]

...artificial teachers don' t have to outperform the best teachers. They just need to outperform the average teacher to be good enough to replace them all.

I don't think artificial intelligence is even needed to replace traditional teachers. What I see in humanity's future is a gradual breakdown and democratization of education systems, globally, and replaced with new paradigms of learning. In the Information Age we can model information as a resource that people consume. Information has different character and value, and can be consumed different ways. Early childhood education is incredibly important and the basics still need to be passed down to children from people, at least until they develop meta-cognition. Once a child understands the concept of "learning" (and it's value), then learning can happen through any number of tools that may or may not involve humans, technology, or any combination of.

Furthering the idea of information as a resource, we all have appliances to access it, just like we have appliances to bring water and electricity into our homes. To me the question isn't about the value of human teachers, but how sophisticated our information appliances will become. Teachers generally deliver information in a certain way, and it's more or less random chance that there will be a connection between student and teacher. But if students have access to many types of teachers (or combinations of) through their "information appliance," then they can be taught more effectively -- no Artificial Intelligence required.

What if, instead of doing online classes with the same teacher over Zoom during COVID, students were given the option to learn from a variety of teachers and resources? What if all the most common questions about material were searchable, and the answers delivered in different ways from dozens of teachers? Here is a personal anecdote: years ago I hard a hard time wrapping my brain around Secure Sockets Later (SSL, the thing that makes secure web browsing possible). I watched about 20 videos on YouTube before I found one that made sense. Young kids don't have the discipline to do this self-directed research, but there is no reason we can't build a "learning appliance" that can help. The appliance doesn't have to pass a Turing test, speech and language recognition are already good enough today.

[LightWolf]

Imagine if we had AI that could deduce and adapt to students' needs, figuring out how they learn best and delivering a personalized experience for that student. There are a couple details I'd be hesitant about (What if it detects a student who should be in a group for mental health reasons learns best alone? Or what if it's abused to deliver propaganda?), but in general I think this would be a pretty good revolutionary development.

[Top Gun]

As a teacher, I've seen all but the strongest students suffer to some degree or another with the hybrid/fully-virtual learning model. I've seen many of them flat-out sink and nearly stop turning in all assignments. I've seen many of them care less about their work than ever before. So you'll excuse me if applying this ideal model of independent, self-motivated study to the entire student population smells like so much bull★■◆●.

[Isaac]

But if students have access to many types of teachers (or combinations of) through their "information appliance," then they can be taught more effectively -- no Artificial Intelligence required.

....

The appliance doesn't have to pass a Turing test, speech and language recognition are already good enough today.

Your comment actually makes me more optimistic. It didn't really occur to me that we might be able to enforce a self-teaching education system today. Maybe even a buddy system, where you and your friend help each other through self-teaching. I feel like I would have loved going to a school like this when I was young.

As a teacher, I've seen all but the strongest students suffer to some degree or another with the hybrid/fully-virtual learning model. I've seen many of them flat-out sink and nearly stop turning in all assignments. I've seen many of them care less about their work than ever before. So you'll excuse me if applying this ideal model of independent, self-motivated study to the entire student population smells like so much bull★■◆●.

Our web based testing and quizzing tools, even with video lectures, is hardly an overhaul of the education system. The classic classroom model is still the foundation our education system. If mass automated education comes, we'll still have school buildings, but you won't be able to point to anything that looks like a class room or computer lab. A school built for automated education wouldn't be recognizable to us.

Imagine if we had AI that could deduce and adapt to students' needs, figuring out how they learn best and delivering a personalized experience for that student. There are a couple details I'd be hesitant about (What if it detects a student who should be in a group for mental health reasons learns best alone? Or what if it's abused to deliver propaganda?), but in general I think this would be a pretty good revolutionary development.

I like your reply a lot! Yes, imagine even the most struggling student being completely ready to peruse a college degree in chemical engineering because the teacher who educated the student literally had inhuman patience and adaptability.

[vision]

As a teacher, I've seen all but the strongest students suffer to some degree or another with the hybrid/fully-virtual learning model.

Yes, what we have now is total garbage. It's been thrust upon us by circumstance, crisis management if you will, and far from optimal. Anecdotally, I spent a lot of time as a kid watching PBS show, specifically ones that taught you how to paint and draw, and that eventually set the groundwork for art education and a career as an artist. I think the trick is to identify what works best for kids early on and let their natural curiosity take over. Of course it's much more complicated than this, I know that, but staying on topic, I don't see a reason why we can't be less reliant on the traditional teacher/student/classroom model.

[Tunnelcat]

Public school is a cookie cutter approach to educate kids en masse, kids that are cut from many different types and flavors of dough. Sometimes they turn out as great cookies, but a lot of the time that dough can end up burned, under cooked or misshapen. Kids also need socialization as they grow, but many can be turned into sociopaths or psychopaths due to unchecked or even encouraged bullying because the system can't or won't check it. Many times, it's the parents are the biggest problem in the whole situation too.

[Burlyman]

I don't see any of that happening because the gov't wants the same education system: controlled with limited information (yet people still think they get a lot of information at school, like I said).

[Tunnelcat]

And religious people want their own madrassas paid for by the public (aka school choice) because they don't like a well rounded general education that includes coddling and glorifying sinners like LGBTQ people.

[Krom]

The idea behind this thread will only work if "teachers" are replaced by androids that are indistinguishable from live humans. Social interaction is a fairly demanding set of skills that require significant practice which cannot all be done using a computer display. One of the problems with the current school system is inadequate and or outright counterproductive social interaction. Children learn proper social behaviors by near constant interaction with both older and younger children and also adult role models, the current system of grouping them by age is practically active sabotage of their early social skills development.

[Tunnelcat]

Even then, people would still ★■◆● that the teacher android's programming was politically influenced, even if a MACHINE created the original programming. You just can't make everyone happy no matter what the solution ends up being, especially in the U.S.

[Burlyman]

And religious people want their own madrassas paid for by the public (aka school choice) because they don't like a well rounded general education that includes coddling and glorifying sinners like LGBTQ people.

That's just the new way of saying 'original sin.' Nobody has to stay LGBT. They just use that as an excuse to keep sinning. Like hmm there must be something wrong with God and not me. It doesn't make sense. I also would've preferred an education that involves science and not scientism and other lies that are taught in school.

[Top Gun]

That's just the new way of saying 'original sin.' Nobody has to stay LGBT. They just use that as an excuse to keep sinning. Like hmm there must be something wrong with God and not me. It doesn't make sense. I also would've preferred an education that involves science and not scientism and other lies that are taught in school.

Hey Neo, take your ass-backward sharia bull★■◆● and shove it up your ass back in the 5th century where it belongs.

[LightWolf]

And here I thought we were having a discussion that wouldn't turn toxic. I see that is clearly impossible around here.

[Top Gun]

You'll excuse me if I'm unwilling to allow naked bigotry to go unchallenged.

[Burlyman]

I told you they're a hive of toxic roaches

[Top Gun]

Aww, widdle Neo can't hack it when someone calls out his bull★■◆●.

[Tunnelcat]

Neo has his "opinion" just as TG has his, although TG's is not as eloquent. Come on TG, don't make my job harder. If you want to argue with Neo, use your brain and since you're a teacher TG, I know you have a better vocabulary than what you vomit forth when you get pissed off. Oh and TG, you need to go further back than the 5th century if you're going to call out a Christian on his tenets.

IMO, Christians and other Abrahamic religions can spout their fiction that LBGTQ people make their sinful "choice" to live the way they do until they're blue in the face. But as far as I'm concerned, they're at best wrong and at the worst, insecure about their own sexuality and making a poisonous political statement like it's a "fact". I've got news, it's your "opinion" Neo. The tenets of your religion are not factual. I get into arguments with my Christian sister over this very topic, I've even hung up on her she's so bigoted and stuck in her faith. But no amount of talking is going to convince people like her or Neo who fervently and unquestioningly believe in an old uniformed text, The Bible, written by superstitious and fearful people with no inkling how the world or science really worked millennia ago. I mean, they've managed to figure out a way to work dinosaurs into the way the world was created, even the world's true age, which is far older than the Bible states. Faith is one of those concepts that people take literally and never, ever question, nor WANT to question. Their faith is unbreakable and cast in stone. They wall themselves into their fictional world and defend it to the death, repressing and shunning others that don't fit their Biblical ideal mold. But in fact, they SHOULD be questioning everything about their faith and their religion. This is 2021, not 0 AD or earlier. It's a sign of a lack of intelligence to take something verbatim and then live your whole life around it, never questioning that faith or even thinking for oneself when things don't add up. They just follow the leader, no matter how wrong, bigoted or muddled the teachings are. I guess I just answered a question in another thread. Christians and Trump go together like peas in a pod. They never question what is presented as "facts". Instead, to avoid that nasty cognitive dissonance, they make up "alternate facts" to bolster their own opinions as better facts, they stand on their pedestal of righteousness and put down those who they see as "bad or sinful" and they both worship their tenets and ideals with an unfailing fealty to the bitter end.

[Top Gun]

No, see, you don't play both-sidesism and treat statements like that as valid "opinions." Anyone trying to push the "people choose to be gay" line in the year 2021 is either deliberately trolling, in which case they should be handled as such, or is so far gone that they have no place in a civilized society, and thus should be ostracized. I am not going to waste one iota of eloquence on garbage like this, nor should any of us. You spout that ★■◆●, and you're persona non grata. Karl Popper got it right.

[vision]

Top Gun is right, we are leaving these people behind because they are holding back civilization. I have no sympathy for them and their ignorance, especially since most of them would gladly act out violently towards us. Get f u c k e d.

[TigerRaptor]

Sooo, who wants to talk about Zoroastrianism next. I don't think this subject has ever been covered here before.

[Tunnelcat]

No, see, you don't play both-sidesism and treat statements like that as valid "opinions." Anyone trying to push the "people choose to be gay" line in the year 2021 is either deliberately trolling, in which case they should be handled as such, or is so far gone that they have no place in a civilized society, and thus should be ostracized. I am not going to waste one iota of eloquence on garbage like this, nor should any of us. You spout that ★■◆●, and you're persona non grata. Karl Popper got it right.

I'm not saying don't counter what you think are statements that need extreme rebuttal, I'm saying do it with a little more panache and less vulgarity.

Sooo, who wants to talk about Zoroastrianism next. I don't think this subject has ever been covered here before.

Wow, I had to look that one up.

[TigerRaptor]

They even founded TATA, who knew, I sure didn't at the time. The history of Zoro is truly interesting.

[Burlyman]

I wouldn't mind talking about Zoroastrianism, but not with a roach like him. All he ever did on the other DBB was insult me, so I'll just be ignoring him and discussing it with everyone else. Go make a thread.

Neo has his "opinion" just as TG has his, although TG's is not as eloquent. Come on TG, don't make my job harder. If you want to argue with Neo, use your brain and since you're a teacher TG, I know you have a better vocabulary than what you vomit forth when you get pissed off. Oh and TG, you need to go further back than the 5th century if you're going to call out a Christian on his tenets.

IMO, Christians and other Abrahamic religions can spout their fiction that LBGTQ people make their sinful "choice" to live the way they do until they're blue in the face. But as far as I'm concerned, they're at best wrong and at the worst, insecure about their own sexuality and making a poisonous political statement like it's a "fact". I've got news, it's your "opinion" Neo. The tenets of your religion are not factual. I get into arguments with my Christian sister over this very topic, I've even hung up on her she's so bigoted and stuck in her faith. But no amount of talking is going to convince people like her or Neo who fervently and unquestioningly believe in an old uniformed text, The Bible, written by superstitious and fearful people with no inkling how the world or science really worked millennia ago. I mean, they've managed to figure out a way to work dinosaurs into the way the world was created, even the world's true age, which is far older than the Bible states. Faith is one of those concepts that people take literally and never, ever question, nor WANT to question. Their faith is unbreakable and cast in stone. They wall themselves into their fictional world and defend it to the death, repressing and shunning others that don't fit their Biblical ideal mold. But in fact, they SHOULD be questioning everything about their faith and their religion. This is 2021, not 0 AD or earlier. It's a sign of a lack of intelligence to take something verbatim and then live your whole life around it, never questioning that faith or even thinking for oneself when things don't add up. They just follow the leader, no matter how wrong, bigoted or muddled the teachings are. I guess I just answered a question in another thread. Christians and Trump go together like peas in a pod. They never question what is presented as "facts". Instead, to avoid that nasty cognitive dissonance, they make up "alternate facts" to bolster their own opinions as better facts, they stand on their pedestal of righteousness and put down those who they see as "bad or sinful" and they both worship their tenets and ideals with an unfailing fealty to the bitter end.

That's why I don't believe he's a teacher and that he's a college student at best.

How can the world be as you say if there's evidence that the earth is flat? Atheists claim to be searching for the truth but most don't want to even hear about it or talk about it once they find it. I've never blindly believed in Christianity. You may be able to claim that about some, but not every Christian. We've seen enough to convince us that Christianity is true, and the text of the Bible just makes it make more sense. Problem here is some people just don't understand true logic when they see it, and the Holy Spirit hasn't revealed God to them because of their lack of faith. Like I basically said, scientism is not real science. We were fed scientism in school so that we believe the opposite of what's true.

[Top Gun]

I'm not saying don't counter what you think are statements that need extreme rebuttal, I'm saying do it with a little more panache and less vulgarity.

The English language has been blessed with a truly spectacular range of vulgarity, and I take great pleasure in applying it liberally. Observe:

That's why I don't believe he's a teacher and that he's a college student at best.

★■◆●ing lol.

[TigerRaptor]

Top Gun did you figure out a way to become 20 years old again? Don't hold out on us man, what's your secret!!

[Top Gun]

It's the thing that doctors don't want you to know!!!