- cross-posted to:
- futurology@futurology.today
- cross-posted to:
- futurology@futurology.today
A private school in London is opening the UK’s first classroom taught by artificial intelligence instead of human teachers. They say the technology allows for precise, bespoke learning while critics argue AI teaching will lead to a “soulless, bleak future”.
The UK’s first “teacherless” GCSE class, using artificial intelligence instead of human teachers, is about to start lessons.
David Game College, a private school in London, opens its new teacherless course for 20 GCSE students in September.
The students will learn using a mixture of artificial intelligence platforms on their computers and virtual reality headsets.
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Marketing play to grab the money off of rich parents. There are still teachers, they are just proxied by “AI”. And there will also still be teachers monitoring. And there will still be teachers for certain topics.
So it’s teacherless, but with plenty of teachers.
Sound like fanless dyson fan.
This is the self checkout of learning. Requires the same amount of employees with the same skills as before, but wait, now it’s also worse!
self checkout defo requires a lot less people than staffed checkouts.
This is bad on three levels. Don’t use AI:
- to output info, decisions or advice where nobody will check its output. Will anyone actually check if the AI is accurate at identifying why the kids aren’t learning? (No; it’s a teacherless class.)
- use AI where its outcome might have a strong impact on human lives. Dunno about you guys, but teens education looks kind like a big deal. /s
- where nobody will take responsibility for it. “I did nothing, the AI did it, not my fault”. School environment is all about that blaming someone else, now something else.
In addition to that I dug some info on the school. By comparing this map with this one, it seems to me that the target students of the school are people from one of the poorest areas of London, the Tower Hamlets borough. “Yay”, using poor people as guinea pigs /s
It’s a private school though, so I’d be cautious about assuming they’re poor kids.
Edit: Yeah, it costs £27000!!!
Fair - my conclusion in this regard was incorrect then.
They’re still using children as guinea pigs though.
Won’t work. I give this little publicity stunt about a week before they go back to human teachers
With reduced pay
Hey, AI is expensive. That money has to come from somewhere.
/s
I’m sorry, but as an AI language model, I cannot allow you to go to the bathroom during classroom hours.
Lmao does anyone actually think this will have effective educational outcomes??
It could. For example, I learn better by myself than in a classroom setting.
It potentially could, even better if it’s still supervised by an actual teacher but each children would have their own AI, so teaching subjects could be personalized. This could mean slow students can still catch up and have bigger chance understanding the said subjects.
If the AI doesn’t hallucinate incorrect information, I totally agree.
One size fits all classroom learning leaves many students behind, and having a personal AI tutor could really help kids fill in the gaps in their understanding that would otherwise be overlooked.
AI hallucinations is still a very real factor that limits the usefulness of this tech right now though. I magine coming into class and your tutor you had yesterday is confidently telling you the opposite of the fact that it taught you yesterday.
Imagine paying to send your child to private school and then they decide to pull this bullshit. Classic profit motivations.
Even Universities are riding the AI Dick, its so distressing.
This article doesn’t really answer most of my questions.
What subjects does the AI cover? Do they do all their learning independently? Does AI compose the entire lesson plan? What is the software platform? Who developed it? Is this just an LLM or is there more to it? How are students assessed? How long has the school been around, and what is their reputation? What is the fundamental goal of their approach?
Overall, this sounds quite dumb. Just incredibly and transparently stupid. Like, if they insisted that all learning would be done on the blockchain. I’m very open minded, but I don’t understand what the student’s experience will be. Maybe they’ll learn in the same way one could learn by browsing Wikipedia for 7 hours a day. But will they enjoy it? Will it help them find career fulfillment, or build confidence or learn social skills? It just sounds so much like that Willie Wonka experience scam but applied to an expensive private school instead of a pop-up attraction.
As stupid as it is, hoping to see the results. It does sound like a neat experiment but even if it is “successful” (my definition probably differs from their’s), a good teacher is more than just a learning tool. AI would never replace the empathy and dedication.
Straight up just taking a piss at both the children’s future, and the teacher’s professional career
Time to pay VAT motherfuckers.
So many things come to mind reading this, but the most important thought is: This will be how the bastards finally get rid of those pesky teachers and their gasp progressive teachings! /s I hope this fails hard, because a world without trading ideas to children is just prison for all.
All in all you’re jsut another AI induced brick in the wall
The students will learn using a mixture of artificial intelligence platforms on their computers and virtual reality headsets.
Suspicions immediately confirmed that the principal is a complete fucking dipshit who just wants to chase whatever trends sound futuristic. What an awful person for putting kids through this garbage.
What an awful person for putting kids through this garbage.
I wouldn’t blame the principal, I’d blame the parents. This is a private school, they’re making a conscientious choice to enroll their kid there.
I blame both, much in the same way that I’d blame a quack doctor and parents bringing their kids to the quack doctor.
How can we use this AI quantum blockchain to educate kids in a more efficient way?
Back in my day we just synergized them.
But this way offers a new paradigm in upward revenue stream dynamics.
I’m very pro ai but this is a terrible idea.
Ignoring the fact that the tech is simply not there for this, how would an AI control the class? They will need a glorified baby sitter there at all times that could be simply teaching.
But I think the worst part of this is that certain kids still need individual attention even if they aren’t special needs and there is no way the AI will be able to pick up on that or act on it.
Recipe for disaster. The part about vr headsets is just icing on the cake.
To be fair the glorified babysitter wouldn’t require 4+ years of education on educating children, so they probably couldn’t just be “simply teaching.” This is still an awful idea, they seem to be trying to save money by paying a glorified babysitter a lower wage than a teacher. Private schools can be for profit in some place, I wonder if that applies here.
But I think the worst part of this is that certain kids still need individual attention even if they aren’t special needs and there is no way the AI will be able to pick up on that or act on it.
Teachers already miss special needs students all the time. If anything, an AI’s pattern recognition will likely be more able to detect areas a student struggles in, because it can analyze a student’s individual performance in a sandbox. Teachers have dozens of students to keep track of at any given time, and it’s impossible for them to catch everything because we feeble humans have limited mental/emotional bandwidth, unlike our perfect silicon gods.
The truth is that this will actually do a lot of things better than real teachers. It’ll also do a lot of things worse. It’ll be interesting to see how the trade-off plays out and to see which elements of the project are successful enough to incorporate into traditional learning environments.
Teachers have dozens of students to keep track of at any given time, and it’s impossible for them to catch everything because we feeble humans have limited mental/emotional bandwidth, unlike our perfect silicon gods.
for teachers with only some years of experience it’s easy to see through a classroom and the information about special needs (or even those not so special needs) are passed from one teacher to another.
They are not a black box of questionable information. They work together, often with love as the basis of their work.
Schools aren’t just about digesting information.
You make a fair point and a tool made specifically for this would probably be a real boon for teachers, but I doubt they incorporated it into their system.
I’m imagining something slapped together. Basically just an AI voice assistant rewording course material and able to receive voice inputs from students if they have questions. I doubt they even implemented voice recognition to differentiate between students.
That said time will tell and if it shows a bit of promise, it will probably be useful for homework help and what not in the near future. It just seems early to be throwing it in a class. At least, it isn’t a public school where parents wouldn’t have a choice.
For what it’s worth, most AI tools being used in corporate environments aren’t generative AI like ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion. I very much doubt it will create new material, as much as control how the pre-written material is given to the students.
I went to a charter high school as a kid, and all our classes were done on computers. The teacher was in the room if you had questions that the software couldn’t answer, but otherwise everything was completely self-paced. I imagine the AI being used in this school is going to be similar, where all the materials are already vetted, and the algorithm determines how and when a student proceeds through the class. The article refers to the classrooms having “learning coaches”, who seem to serve the same purpose the teachers in my school did, as well.
The whole point is that the AI would give them the individualised attention that a single teacher doesn’t have the time or concentration for. And yes, I think they said there would be a glorified babysitter in the classroom to help with the physical, rather than teaching, aspects.
I read the article a bit to fast, you are completely right.
For anyone wondering, here is the relevant bit:
The platforms learn what the student excels in and what they need more help with, and then adapt their lesson plans for the term.
Strong topics are moved to the end of term so they can be revised, while weak topics will be tackled more immediately, and each student’s lesson plan is bespoke to them.
The platforms learn what the student excels in and what they need more help with, and then adapt their lesson plans for the term.
Strong topics are moved to the end of term so they can be revised, while weak topics will be tackled more immediately, and each student’s lesson plan is bespoke to them.
The students are not just left to fend for themselves in the classroom; three “learning coaches” will be present to monitor behaviour and give support.
They will also teach the subjects AI currently struggles with, like art and sex education.
It doesn’t sound quite as dystopian as the headline but I still think we are way too early in the development of this technology to be deploying it at this scale in education.
Yeah, it sounds like a normal lesson plan with ai fairy dust sprinkled on top as a marketing gimmick.
