‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

Tutoring company tells parents to save their money and 'use AI instead'

142 points · 233 comments · theanonymousone

  1. glitchc · · focus · HN ↗
    A calculator, Youtube and iPad tried to replace teachers. They all failed but this time it's different.
    1. analog31 · · focus · HN ↗
      This time around, AI being able to do student homework means that AI is replacing students not teachers.
      1. layman51 · · focus · HN ↗
        This line of reasoning makes sense, but also I would say that a lot of technologists who are interested in education realize that they have to design something that wouldn't just give the answers away because that's not the point of learning. That seems like it can be pretty difficult to accomplish with LLMs because I bet if a student keeps pestering them, they will give up the answer or give a clue that makes the problem way too obvious.

        So usually the claims about replacing tutors like in this article come from a place where they usually give a caveat that maybe for highly motivated and ambitious students, they can figure out how to accelerate their learning with AI. But then that undermines the whole argument of transforming education if it wouldn't work with students who are average or below-average in their academic achievement.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.