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WaltWhitman11 t1_j9rea8h wrote

Have to find new ways of evaluating learning and rethink pedagogy.

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Asleep_Barracuda4781 t1_j9rge28 wrote

Almost the same question was asked a few days ago.

Same answer: Just because we have google, siri, or some future AI has no bearing on education. You still need education to know if any given information is true or reliable regardless of source. You also need to know and practice for times when you don't have access to the all knowing entity or for emergencies when there is only time for action.

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fuck_all_you_people t1_j9rimfp wrote

We already have Google and people are dumber than ever. It's like if AI took over driving and people forgot how to drive.

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nemopost t1_j9rj2by wrote

It will be an issue after the singularity and we have AI in our brains

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ttkciar t1_j9rjahf wrote

Having access to knowledge is not the same thing as being educated.

Education not only causes knowledge to be retained; it also causes it to be integrated together, so that we can view the world in a cross-disciplinary way, and informs our behavior in ways both profound and mundane.

For example, when you see someone tailgating in traffic, you know they slept through their math and physics classes. No amount of information on tap will change their stupid behavior the way education could.

Even with all the information made available to the public about the coronavirus, people still act in stupendous ignorance of the consequences of their bad behavior, and spread the disease in entirely avoidable ways.

My hope is that LLMs like ChatGPT can be integrated into virtual tutors, so that students can get better individualized attention and receive the education we all need them to have.

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WaltWhitman11 t1_j9rpi5n wrote

The amount of time it takes it find the information, access it, read it, compile notes, synthesize the information and write it out in an essay format is greatly reduced with ChatGPT. And the library would teach you how to write an essay; it wouldn’t write the essay for you.

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snowbirdnerd t1_j9rttgt wrote

People asked this when Google was becoming big. Turns out you still need to know enough about a topic to evaluate and apply the knowledge. That means you have to be educated on the topic.

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Catspaw129 t1_j9rwjez wrote

Have you ever seen The Matrix?

We become "coppertops".

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Ok-Farm-9732 t1_j9rx14l wrote

Billion dollar endowments based on university incomes become these big balloons of wealth untethered from the organizations that created them. The people from cafeteria to classroom that created that wealth for the organization are abandoned and those 99 wealth balloons will leave us standing pretty in this dust that was our cities. If I could find a souvenir just to prove the world was here and here is a red balloon I'll think of you and let it go.

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Asleep_Barracuda4781 t1_j9rz3rl wrote

Its going to be a while until AIs are anything more than very fancy pattern recognition algorithms and data aggregators. Even then I think an "AI teacher" would just be an online course guided by an AI to better tailor it to the individual student.

You'll still need a football coach, ballerina teacher, first aid teacher, etc.. Think of anything you learn today that would suffer from a disembodied voice and maybe a youtube video series being your instructor.
Unless AI gets to the point of triggering muscle groups and programming synapsys for us...then frankly we have much larger questions to worry about than "what does education look like?"

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CitricThoughts t1_j9rznh8 wrote

I've seen this idea in a lot of Sci-Fi at this point. I'll talk about two, briefly. First is Mutaneer's Moon, in which automated AI driven education completely replaces teachers and traditional school. Everyone has the ability to look up anything with the power of the literal moon which is a giant machine in that universe. Very unrealistically, people protest for a while and then happily and immediately get in line.

Another is The Diamond Age. In this, people get access to wikipedia+. With this, people an ask any questions they want of the magic book and it'll educate you on anything. In the hands of a naturally curious and talented kid, this makes incredible people.

In both cases these are examples of "self-driven" education, based on AI. Our AI is not that good, is not that reliable or accurate. It's simply gotten to the level where it's tolerable. Given 10-20 years however, we might be able to reach a level of "automated education".

There's a couple of ways this could go. I suspect that at some point after the invention of good auto-ed governments will mandate standards. Much as people can educate themselves with youtube or skillshare now, people could do the same with these programs. With government approval/regulation however, they could also get legally useful degrees and diplomas.

Another is gamification. Imagine school as a game where everyone is competing for the high score. Every bit of education has been made fun using the techniques of modern gaming and AI. Many people hate this idea, but I think it could emerge in the near future.

It could be a wonderful tool, but it could also be terrifying. Imagine a gamified auto-ed system that's better than any traditional school and designed by someone evil. You could create an evil, exploitative, addictive school that pumps out people with whatever malign ideology you like. That's true of regular schools, but these would be magnified to a new level. Dictators could use these tools to shape the next generation.

It could be wonderful, it could be terrible. I believe we'll be getting there eventually though.

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arcanepsyche t1_j9s0yh0 wrote

I remember in middle school we weren't allowed to use calculators because "how would we learn??". I learned so much from that damn graphing calculator.

Besides, AI is not correct 100% of the time (yet).

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tcmasterson t1_j9s1eac wrote

Calculators didn't make everyone Pythagoras

Everyone still needs an education to understand the given answers, how to apply those answers, and more importantly, what questions to ask next.

"...42" - Deep Thought (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

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CitricThoughts t1_j9s2ud3 wrote

Thanks, I've been thinking about the problem for years. I grew up in a rural town with terrible education and mostly had to teach myself whatever I wanted to learn, so these stories naturally attracted me to them.

If there's one thing I know, it's that technology doesn't change people. It just magnifies them. It'll be wonderful and terrible, but mostly just more.

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foxy-coxy t1_j9s3dya wrote

Perhaps our Education System could focus on teaching us how to ask better questions.

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ttkciar t1_j9s3n4o wrote

People are naturally ignorant and do not know how to think well.

Filling their heads with well-integrated knowledge and inculcating habits of effective thinking requires education, a process which effectively engraves new neural pathways and remakes the child into something else.

Right now the most effective methods we have for that involves repeated mental exercises. For very young children this can be easy, because their minds are still extremely plastic, but as children grow older it grows increasingly painful. Reforging one's brain into something it's not is sharply at odds with our instinct for self-preservation. Once we have become a person, we want to continue being that person. But education remakes us into someone else -- someone better than we were.

Nobody is born with the self-discipline they need to make that happen. Part of the educational process is inculcating that self-discipline. While it is being learned, a teacher must hold them to task to make up for the lack.

If AI is to solve the problem of people being stupid bags of mostly water, it needs to identify the students' points of cognitive weakness, provide them with instruction and exercises which strengthen those points, and hold them to task practicing those exercises over and over and over until weakness becomes strength.

To prevent the student from simply walking away from the AI tutor, the AI tutor would need to hold some kind of leverage over the student, so that walking away is more painful than performing the educational exercises.

This is treading dreadfully close to dystopian AI-apocalypse territory, but that's just an illustration of how nightmarish the educational process can be. If irons in the forge had mouths, they would certainly scream as they are beaten into steel with hammer and fire. So are schools a crucible for transforming students.

Make no mistake, when we talk about AI solving this problem, we are talking about giving AI our children and a forge.

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pellik t1_j9s5oso wrote

Eventually I think it will cause education to re-focus from memorization based testing to a more conceptualization focused system.

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SchemataObscura t1_j9s65ff wrote

Just like now. Some will use tools and some will be used by tools and others will be resistant to adoption.

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ttkciar t1_j9s68m4 wrote

"The Matrix", like Catspaw129 said.

Early in the movie, when the gang was getting ready to yank Neo out of the matrix, Switch calls him "coppertop". What that meant wasn't explained until later, when Morpheus held up a Duracell battery, but he didn't make the connection explicit. The script depended on the audience knowing that Duracells were colloquially known as "coppertops".

Edited: I thought it was Cypher who called him "coppertop", but Catspaw129 is right, it was Switch.

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strvgglecity t1_j9s95yd wrote

Oh well have you seen Idiocracy? Lol. No AI won't likely be used to suddenly make everyone smarter, if that type of tech ever comes to exist. Do you think if Elon musk or the u.s. government had that technology, they would give it away to everyone equally? It would create a separate species with unforeseeable consequences.

Besides, everyone being smarter wouldn''t magically give everyone give equal access to wealth or equal rights, and making the people in power smarter is as likely to make them better tyrants as it is to make them more compassionate.

While it would be wise to reverse the trend of attacking intelligence and education, what we need to get past our biggest problems is an injection of empathy and compassion for human beings.

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Asleep_Barracuda4781 t1_j9sc7lx wrote

That satirical future is looking less fanciful with every passing day. It blows my mind how I hear people want to shove more and more of their responsibilities off on to an AI, tech companies, or gov't while also hearing people complain about how they are products of the system and the system is holding them down. I wonder how much overlap there is between the two groups.

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adead20 t1_j9scobh wrote

I think the education system is arguably more for teaching people how to function in society more so than getting pure information. Sure, the education system doesn’t do a great job teaching people stuff about taxes finances bills etc. but it does an excellent job teaching people to get their ass up at 7 am and go to a building and do something they hate for 8 hours which is a lifelong part of how society works.

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The_Observatory_ t1_j9sf7hb wrote

What happens when people aren't educated enough to know which questions to ask the AI, and aren't educated enough to evaluate whether the given answers are accurate and relevant? The purpose of our education system isn't merely to give you answers to questions; you can already get that from Google. It is intended to teach you how to think.

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ShowNudesForLove t1_j9sgst9 wrote

To learn from an AI like this, you have to have an intrinsic desire to learn something new. You want to know something, so you ask the ai. You care about what it has to say because you actively want to know the answer.

In general, the majority of students k-12 in the US so not possess this intrinsic desire to learn for all or even most of their courses. Good teachers find ways to build relationships with the students and build connections from the content to the students' lives in order to help foster that intrinsic desire.

That's a piece that will be extremely difficult to recreate because of how individualized it is.

Take for example a student who wants to know more about physics. They ask an AI to explain some concept. If the explanation is too high level, they'll then need to ask the ai to explain the pieces of it to them and break it down until they can build up their understanding. This requires a kind of meta cognition that most students don't develop easily. And at each step where they don't understand and need it broken down further, it's another block causing them to reconsider how much they actually care about learning the information in the first place.

For upper level students or very motivated individuals, I think ai could potentially get there. But for the majority of schooling at primary and secondary levels, I think we are going to need teachers for a very long time.

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Asleep_Barracuda4781 t1_j9si4gm wrote

I don't know enough about neuroscience to say anything of meaning. I would assume you would have to articifically connect neurons.

As someone else has pointed out in the comments. Having knowledge of something does not equate to understanding it, let alone being able to implement your understanding. You would have to be able to download the understanding and muscle memory that comes with experience, training, and practice.

If the AI can literally reprogram your brain by reconnecting individual neurons...at what point are you just an organic robot robbed of all agency and a mere play thing of the AI?

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7grims t1_j9sk48d wrote

Seems to be a plethora of solutions:

- Make home work or home projects questions that include a array of information that forces the student to read it properly and engage with the information, regardless if that question be inserted in a AI query.

- More tests in class, without the help of phones or pc's

- More engaging classrooms, to see who is paying attention and if the students are understanding

- More hand written stuff, paper and pencils, to make sure the students read what they write

- etc

Seems this is beneficial to education actually, for years studying was being in class day dreaming, and afterwards being forced to go to a library or the net to get all the info u ignored while in class.

AI presents a good opportunity to reform education and improve it to even better that it ever was.

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NorCalBodyPaint t1_j9skue6 wrote

I think we need to change things drastically.

De-emphasize calculation and fact regurgitation- machines can do that better and they are ubiquitous

Emphasize critical thinking X100- so we can discern good from bad with more accuracy

Emphasize Arts and Communication skills- so we can work better in social environments

Emphasize Social Skills and Psychology- so we can understand our own motivations and those of others

Learn the basics of rhetoric, so that one can tell when others are using rhetorical tricks to manipulate others.

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amitym t1_j9smfq6 wrote

Knowing which questions to ask and how to ask them has always been the important thing. If education didn't prepare you for that already then AI isn't going to change anything.

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Sykocis t1_j9soxj4 wrote

Critical thinking will become more important than ever. What use is instant answers if we are unable to ask the right questions?

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TeachingCommercial16 t1_j9sqebh wrote

Ok but hear me out government gets control of said AI makes that AI teach schools and now the government can make it so whenever anyone searches anything up or when people learn in school it all comes from the government spooky scary

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sschepis t1_j9sw8oe wrote

Education, and the concept of knowledge and learning, are about to be fundamentally transformed by AI.

Up til now, our educational system beyond primary school has been dedicated to specialization. However, this specialization has been largely driven by constraint - we need the time in order to absorb the material - and therefore, we naturally specialize, burrowing deep into a single subject to the exclusion of everything else.

This is one of the things that has led to the state of today's science establishment, for example - an establishment which rewards exactly this kind of specialization. Cross-disciplinary research is rare, and so are the kinds of scientists we once had - scientists driven by a broad curiosity about the world - are rare. They get driven out quickly and branded as troublemakers.

This is all about to change, completely. AI democratizes knowledge in a way nothing ever has, by giving anyone the ability to recall any piece of information about any process, structure or method in existence.

This means that the advantage no longer lies in ones ability to specialize due to constraints placed by biological capability.

Suddenly, what becomes prized is the individual's ability to become anyone quickly, assisted by AI.

The individual's ability to act as the real-time actioner of their own intent using the situational intelligence of AI requires them to enter into a mode of operation where they simply respond in real-time to the information presented by the AI, with just the right amount of variation to account for the moment.

In other words - it will be your ability to be a convincing improv actor which will matter most relative your capacity to wield this new technology. Specialization will become a relic of the past, when we couldn't simply intend our desires and watch as an invisible force guided us through the actions necessary to actualize them.

The AI age will be the time of the creative, the adept of mind, and the communicator. Those who are fluid and able to respond in tune with the AI will be at the top on this hierarchy, and our schools will one day come to teach skills like empathy for this exact reason.

The crazy thing is that this is just the start of it. AI literally changes everything.

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Zer0pede t1_j9szh15 wrote

I think it depends: What do you consider knowledge? Critical thinking skills for instance are different from facts—those take practice, not information. Arguably all knowledge is more than just information—the process of learning figures into it.

Even with a language: you could download grammar rules maybe, but everybody develops a feel for language that’s intimate, unique, and distinct, and that sense develops because you learn it slowly over time. Could you download the fact that many people find the word “moist” uncomfortable, but only in English? I memorized the case system in German and Russian long before I could use them in conversation correctly and instinctively. Knowing the facts was only part of learning the language.

Scientific insight is often described as coming in a flash after years of familiarization with a subject. That’s more than just the information—that’s years of turning a subject around and around in your head until you feel things about it instinctively, connected with other things in your life. There’s reason to believe dreams forge unique connections between subjects and experiences in your brain, almost like metaphors, and those would be entirely unique to how you learned a subject as opposed to what you learned. That kind of complex learning and interconnecting of subjects as you go is very different from a “download,” but that’s what we mean when we say “knowledge.”

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Yuli-Ban t1_j9t2syk wrote

The education system, schooling, all that becomes more of a social function in that case. Humans evolved to be around other humans; we are social apes, and replacing that with technology— even very humanlike technology— is insufficient for a child's behavioral and psychological wellbeing. Personal education (AI tutors) might replace "true" school, but the way we've implemented schooling in our society fits our nature well.

This is why I don't see school going away. The true point of school on a fundamental level is to put kids into community associations for general education; it's only our Prussian-style education system that focuses heavily on labor capabilities and aptitude training, and thus that aspect of schooling will likely change. What we call schools will almost certainly evolve into community functions.

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Deceiver999 t1_j9t50gd wrote

One way or another, there won't be any schools in the US in 20 years. Either AI will teach from home, etc, or there won't be any more students left after all the school shootings.

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spacemunkey336 t1_j9t7t3x wrote

Teaching and education involve so much more than the dispersal and absorption of information. Until AI learns how to understand the human condition, relate to and motivate students, I doubt the fundamental principles on which education operates will change much. Yeah, AI can and will tell you everything you want to know, but how many people will develop the curiosity to actually ask for that information without human intervention?

My argument is, at a cognitive level, education is rooted in philosophy, imagination, curiosity, and human beings' capacity to be understood and influenced by other human beings. AGI or even ASI can solve a lot (or even all) of our problems, but they will have a very difficult time grasping the human experience -- this is not a problem to solved, after all. Some can say that AI doesn't need to understand our lived experiences to generate meaningful data, and give the example of AI art, but even art has certain objective metrics which it can be evaluated by. In my opinion, human education is more about the connection of minds rather than simple consumption of media/information, and AI is likely to struggle with this concept since there isn't a clear loss function or probability distribution or even very good datasets it can leverage for this task. I say this as an academic working in engineering, and I use AI tools for my research. It will be a while (or forever) until we see human education being completely devoid of human teachers.

Now, AI "educating" (training) other AI from start to finish.. that has a lot of potential and could possibly happen in the short-term future.

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WittyUnwittingly t1_j9t8y5d wrote

You can answer your own questions, but how do you know what to ask? In the future, school will be focused on improving competency and the ability to self start.

Most of my math students are very surprised when I tell them all of their tests will be open-note. Then, they don't study for the first one and expect to be able to wing it (the way you would do if you had AI Google in your head), but they can't, because the test is designed with the idea that it will be open note since its inception.

This is what AI brain implants will be like. If you were the only one with such a device, you'd be special and you'd be able to take advantage of the current systems. However, everyone will have those implants, and when everyone is special, no one is.

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SvenTheHorrible t1_j9tan20 wrote

2 things.

AI will probably never be able to discern what is true or not given that so much of the information out there is lies- humans lie, therefor tools made by humans pretty much have to lie.

Second- education is about a lot more than just having the answer to a question. It probably doesn’t feel that way because modern education has devolved into test test test, but education is supposed to be about getting you to think a certain way. I would use common core as an example- really useful math concept that most people utterly fail to understand because of our education style.

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andi_bk t1_j9tdl8f wrote

I hope that the systems detecting ai generated content will be able to also in the future. This way we could make sure, that people using these systems for school have to actually read and go through it step by step.

There will definitely be people that use it to find answers and actually ease their learning experience (one source instead of 12 different websites). So AI can and will also positively affect the education system.

Teachers will be able to create more and higher quality teaching materials, finally giving them the help they need in a world of increasing class sizes and demands.

All in all i believe that AI can greatly help in this sector, making learning faster and easier than ever before.

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ScaleLongjumping3606 t1_j9tgk2t wrote

It doesn’t really matter if AI can answer any question if you don’t know what to ask.

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Iffykindofguy t1_j9tpsal wrote

the education system doesnt have anything to do with that currently

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Grouchy-Delivery2453 t1_j9tqq1l wrote

If the world were fair and logical we’d restructure the education system to focus on teaching real life skills like diet, exercise, health & wellness, spirituality, philosophy, finances, body positivity, science, and skills/trades. You know, all the things that are essential for happiness that most of are missing.

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ChefAffectionate4709 t1_j9tx3tl wrote

Education and Knowledge are their own rewards and AI/ML is just another tool. It’s a good tool but ….

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helvetica_simp t1_j9unv4c wrote

Exactly, I tell kids this any time I get I asked why they need to learn math when calculators exist. Long answer is making them do a realistic word problem where there’s extraneous information, multiple math operators, and an explanation of why they used what. Short answer is calculators can’t think critically.

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jeffreynya t1_j9urmc4 wrote

I think Curriculum could be designed more as an outline of a subject and you then are asking questions about that topic. Different questions may be answered in different ways depending. This would allow students to better learn things in ways that are best for them. Some may need more details and others less. It would be much more personalized.

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Zer0pede t1_j9us962 wrote

Have you tried to teach before? Every student learns so differently, and the best teachers are learning while they teach (think of professors who both research in their field and teach, but it applies to other teachers). Students ask fascinating questions. Feynman talks in many places about how much teaching helped his research. Also, office hours are for befriending students because elements of their home life affect how they learn, and you really need to get an idea of how they think.

There’s lots of ways AIs could assist learning and self-education: I’d love to have something that could pre-read books and papers with an eye to subjects I’m interested in and bring those to me. It would also be great if students had something at home that could direct them to parts of a textbook that were relevant to a homework problem they didn’t understand and suggest supplementary materials like videos, but you’re always going to need a human teacher in the mix. Maybe you could save that teacher a lot of stress by having an AI build rough lesson plans and materials that they only had to tweak (teachers can spend all vacation writing a lesson plan), and then the teacher could focus their time on helping students one on one.

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asyrin25 t1_j9utgp0 wrote

Counterpoint:

Now that my cars and phones have had nav for years, I know how to get to most places within 5 square miles of my house, and that's it.

This is theoretically a problem when I don't have access to the tech.

This has never happened and would take a near apocalypse event to happen.

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Illeazar t1_j9utmpi wrote

Same thing that happened when the internet became a thing (or is still in process of happening in many cases).

The things we need to learn change, and shift to adapt to how the works works. You don't need to know the Dewey decimal system anymore, but you need to know how to find information and determine which is credible. You don't need to know how to write cursive anymore, but you do need to know how to present your ideas in a way that other people will be able to understand them.

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Scope_Dog t1_j9uu8bv wrote

We'll all sit around quoting Shakespeare and Dostoevsky like in Ghost in the Shell 2.

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Henri_Dupont t1_j9uv5ev wrote

"Just because we have scrolls, doesn't mean we don't need to learn how to think, to discriminate among ideas, to analyze and to determine truth from lies."

--Some Egyptian Guy.

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Asleep_Barracuda4781 t1_j9uz51e wrote

How is this a conterpoint? It proves my point. Either you have been educated in how to read a map and road signs and therefore could navigate without GPS navigation, or you would be screwed without your phone or car.

If you ever have to borrow someone else's car or rent a car that doesn't have nav, and your phone's battery runs out of energy...then you're reliant on your previous education. It doesnt take an apocalypse.

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ZedZeroth t1_j9v2vyd wrote

I'm a teacher. AI will replace education as we know it within this century. My students are already using ChatGTP for independent study. It's more effective than online searches or textbooks, and they can ask it to adapt its answers to help them understand it better.

It's only a matter of time before AI is teaching more effectively and more engagingly than human teachers. Especially via gamification for younger learners. There will be a 1:1 "teacher" to student ratio and it will keep each student in their ZPD (zone of proximal development).

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benevenstancian0 t1_j9v3n17 wrote

Educators are grappling with how to integrate technology into the learning process already, even before AI becomes ubiquitous. Learning has fundamentally changed in the last 25ish years, having greatly accelerated in the last few due to technological advances and COVID lockdowns.

In the future, AI will hopefully be used in an integrative manner. You can’t fight progress, but we need to embrace that progress is going to occur far faster than it ever has in human history and that we need to find ways to use these tools to further humanity, not as a way to legislate humanity out of society.

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asyrin25 t1_j9v5y8v wrote

If I'm in a car, I have something to plug my phone into. I then have Google Maps.

If I didn't have my phone, where would I even get a map? They don't sell them at gas stations anymore and I certainly don't keep a map book in the car. Being able to read road signs isn't remarkably useful for navigating somewhere you don't know how to get to. That requires an understanding of the layout of the streets and freeway system, the former of which doesn't even necessarily have a logic to it.

That understanding is only useful in a nearly catastrophic situation. One neither I nor anyone I know has run into in recent memory.

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Asleep_Barracuda4781 t1_j9v83nh wrote

Yes, today's navigation infrastructure within cities is quite robust. You probably won't have to worry about not having at least indirect access to Google Maps unless the GPS or telecom networks go down.

I still don't see how this is a counterpoint. OP's question assumed AI is instanteously available and implied that this means you would just rely on the AI for all info and direction in life. (At least the recent similar questions have all hinted at this) My point is no infrastructure is perfect, infomation transfer takes time which you don't always have, and finally knowledge doesn't equate to understanding or give you the ability to apply the knowledge.
Therefore you will still need to learn, memorize, and practice stuff in anticipation of needing it later or to provide a foundation to build further learning on. Is that not a working definition of education?

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asyrin25 t1_j9v8xb3 wrote

My counterpoint is that, at least in my case, technology has caused me to forget that education. I lack the ability to navigate far without the tech because those skills are no longer used. In theory, I could spend the time and effort to educate myself but with the tech so reliable, my chances of getting a benefit from doing so are very small. Even if I spent the time, the tech performs the task better than I could. Maps has access to life traffic data, for example.

So, to OP's point, what other skills will we lose once technology makes them defunct?

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elephantman2004 t1_j9vgzq0 wrote

lol the same thing is going to happen when to the education system when the internet became widely available gif

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BruceNY1 t1_j9vp09a wrote

The most important thing we learn in school is how to learn what you don't know - how do I make a net to catch that particular fish in that river of information that's constantly moving. For example, when we learn about combustion in school, most people learn that fire needs an oxidant and fuel. Cool, that's accurate and useful - in my school they also taught us the phlogiston theory and by what experiments it was debunked - that's the other part of education, how to test your knowledge for accuracy instead of latching on to the factoids, how to supersede established knowledge. That's the critical thinking that we hear so much about...

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capt_yellowbeard t1_j9vtl6v wrote

I don’t teach people how to memorize stuff. I teach people how to science.

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Onrawi t1_j9vv6kv wrote

I mean, "I know Kung-Fu" is kind of the end game here isn't it? Just plug the info directly to our brains. This is probably the next step.

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ZedZeroth t1_j9w29x8 wrote

I have a huge amount that I could add to this. Education and technology are two of my largest areas of expertise. You might need to ask something more specific for me to give an effective response though. Thanks

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Automatic_History_17 t1_j9w3bpw wrote

It becomes about how to critique and what to do with the information. This is already happening in good education systems. The internet and google already pretty much does this.

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CakeRobot365 t1_j9wajae wrote

Critical thinking skills are already in decline. I don't feel that AI will have a noticeable impact

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ichankal t1_j9xi47v wrote

> Everyone has the ability to look up anything

Go to any news subreddit. People are too lazy to read the article, which is only one click away.

>In the hands of a naturally curious and talented kid

And thats where the whole thing falls apart... in a world where most people are too fucking lazy to scroll down the page a bit to see what people have already posted... before posting the exact same fucking question that has already been asked and answered a hundred times already.

The only way to get information into the average kid's head is to tell them to sit down, shut the fuck up, and listen.

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CitricThoughts t1_j9xl8t7 wrote

That's just the way things are. Some people are driven. Some people are not. The driven people, given access to tools and information, get to be better educated and live better lives. Why should the future be any different?

Cynically saying everyone is in the unmotivated category is wrong though. For every person that becomes a cyberpotato there'll be another that chooses to chase cyber-godhood. Just like there's people that give themselves a college education equivalent on their own time with free tools today.

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ichankal t1_j9xlsng wrote

> Some people are driven. Some people are not.

Jesus Christ, what a way to run an education system.

"Sorry Parent, we didnt teach your kid anything this year because he wasnt driven. Better luck next year."

No. Just No. A school has to teach all students as much as they can, not just the "driven" ones. Get them to sit down, shut up, listen, take notes, ask questions, and yes it will all be tested on the exam.

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CitricThoughts t1_j9xn7qg wrote

I imagine you'd be a very "fun" teacher. The idea is to combine fun, game-like education with self driven standards. It can't work for everyone, but neither does current public school. Neither does religious school or home school. Neither does current self education. I don't know if it'll work, it'll have flaws and not work for everyone because that's how everything works. No matter how good you do, some people just won't try or will fail. It's simply a new tool that'll be added to the toolbox.

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WesternKaleidoscope2 t1_j9xxw49 wrote

What concerns me most is the loss of the ability or need to memorize information. For example, growing up I had at least a dozen phone numbers memorized. Since I got a cell phone I only have my own and my mom's phone numbers memorized. Why should we memorize anything when the answers to most of life's queries can literally be found in the palm of our hand?

Spoiler alert for anyone who has yet to/wants to read The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons:

When thinking about a possible worst-case scenario of what an overreliance on web-based technology (thoughts on demand) could look like I always think back to Simmon's Hyperion Cantos. In his stories, various worlds are interconnected by a type of bridge between worlds and a WorldWeb. Through this WorldWeb, citizens of these worlds can instantaneously access information through neural implants. When the worlds are suddenly disconnected from each other and the WorldWeb people's neural implants go dark. Without access to trade and the constant stream of instantaneous data to their neural implants, whole societies collapse. People simply didn't remember how to do anything. Developing the capacity to access long-term memory (skills, knowledge) wasn't required.

Viewing Simmon's story as a cautionary tale - maybe the education system will have to primarily focus on developing the soft skills of its students and long-term memorization techniques.

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