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Notes -
Taps sign: "Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good (or at least better)"
Existing, presumably 100% real human (not that they act like it) US teachers are largely powerless in the same situation, correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't even have the leeway to kick the little shit out of class, let alone rap them on the knuckles. This is the same line of thinking that prevents gifted students from entering fast track programs, because imagine the plight of those left behind!
So if helps those who can be helped, while not really making things worse for those who can't be fixed short of a good caning, what's there to lose?
There are plenty of intermediate situations between purely human teachers and purely artificial ones, you could simply have the electronics that each kid has come loaded with the AI so they can ask it questions, during class or after, about things they couldn't quite get. Or have it tell the human teacher where the kid is struggling.
I think GPT-4 is a better tutor than the average human teacher, certainly if given a curriculum to follow and metrics to track, but even if it's worse, it seems to be clearly additive to the capabilities of having the human around while not costing much.
See, that's the thing. If your individually tailored AI is - let's be blunt here - run along the lines of streaming or segregation or the other methods whereby children were sorted out into classes based on academic ability, it might work.
That doesn't mean the less academic kids are condemned to the 'stupid pile'; AI tuition for woodworking and metalwork classes (I think materials technology is the fancy new name) and practical subjects would be great, also.
But that does mean Johnny with the anger management issues needs to be in a separate class, and probably still needs human teacher supervision. That's not even the main problem, because if Johnny gets proper support, he may do as well as he can.
What we need - and what nobody wants to do - is separate out the troublemakers. Forget the bleeding-heart stuff about "school to prison pipeline"; if Johnny or Jamal or Jésus is smashing up stuff, dealing drugs, assaulting other students and teachers, and not paying a second's attention to any attempt to teach him something useful, then boot him out. Schools would love to do this, but for a combination of reasons - the political lack of will, the bureaucratic social worker belief in not doing anything because of culture or not imposing values, the legal requirement that children get an education which means that parents will go to court to force some unlucky school to take their little budding Al Capone for daycare because they don't want him hanging round at home - they can't.
I've seen early school leavers programmes, and the result there depends on the same thing: motivation. A kid who drops out of ordinary school but does want to turn their life around will work in that environment. A kid who is bored, surly, and violent, and only interested in weed, sex, and easy money, hence moving towards crime all of their own volition, won't do anything except waste time until they're finally old enough to be sent to adult prison.
AI on its own won't work, if the expectations are "this will solve the problem of dropping out, lack of attainment, illiteracy, crime, and so forth" - and those expectations will be loaded onto it! - because the roots of those are in social conditions as much as intelligence or academic ability. And until we're willing to look that Gorgon in the eye - that Jamal or Johnny may not be salvageable - then all the happy techo-optimism that this time this fix will work for sure - well, you know what I think there.
What solutions do you prefer instead?
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