Thread

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

142 points · 233 comments · theanonymousone

radiorental · 1790264419 · focus · HN ↗
This isn't binary, teachers have limited bandwidth and supplementing real teaching with AI supported research can work.
Students need to understand what AI is and is not.
Something got lost as we transitioned from parents telling their kids to 'go play and do not come back until dinner is ready' to us handholding & driving our kids from one social/sport activity to the next.
While it causes fights with my kids, I blank refuse to do certain things for them (fix their internet connection, repair a toy or bike) I'll give them the tools and they know to ask when they get stuck.
The act of learning through failure is a dying art these days. It's 'teach to the test', stressed out teachers, parents having too much to do compounded by taking on second, third jobs in this economy.
Teaching our kids how to leverage AI is something parents should invest in. Its part of a broader education landscape.
1. yardie · 1790265709 · focus · HN ↗
  As a parent I agree with you, but watching other kids get a leg up because their parents continue to jump in and save them. And your own get the double harsh reality of learning failure and then being punished for it through loss of placement and status. It's tragedy of the commons since everyone must pass no one can fail.
  > Teaching our kids how to leverage AI is something parents should invest in. Its part of a broader education landscape.
  The same was said for laptops and tablets. Now there is a push to remove them from the curriculum. Having them meant the students didn't retain anything because they were distracting. I feel using AI in place of pedagogy will have similar results. Why bother learning to retain any information when AI knows everything and can recall it in a split second.
  1. singpolyma3 · 1790286374 · focus · HN ↗
    > Why bother learning to retain any information when AI knows everything and can recall it in a split second.
    This is a real question though. One I've been asking since the early 00s. Learning means something different than it did in decades previous. Merely remembering easy to look up facts is not the slam dunk it used to be.
    randcraw · 1790288342 · focus · HN ↗
    Don't agree. If you know no facts, you'll be unable to think even the most basic thoughts. The more you know, the deeper your thinking can be as well as the more subtle.
    For every fact you learn there is a necessary context and numerous exceptions when it's applied in other contexts. If you expect AI to spit all relevant facts at you every time you're clueless, you will have no idea when AI is wrong or lying. You will have to trust everything AI (or its owner) tells you.
    zhivota · 1790293892 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes. Fact fluency allows higher level of abstraction. This is very clear in the case of mathematics - try doing algebra without having your addition and multiplication tables memorized, kids who fail algebra are often missing these basic facts, along with other basics like order of operations.
    It's not just math either. Try to be an electrician without memorizing the basic principles of electricity and how they interact. You're going to have a bad time.
    By induction we can see how this scales upwards, basically infinitely, to higher and higher levels of thinking.
    tru3_power · 1790303150 · focus · HN ↗
    I think this is mostly compounding confidence at play that unlocks your mind to be more fluid when faced with a task to do/problem to solve that actually requires skill (not just following a series of known steps). It’s like public speaking (unless you have really bad stage fright) you generally will give a better presentation if you really know your stuff, or at least will be less nervous allowing yourself to get into that flow state.
    fulladder · 1790304907 · focus · HN ↗
    > Try to be an electrician...
    > By induction...
    Well played.
    singpolyma3 · 1790348143 · focus · HN ↗
    As someone who never memorized these tables and has a degree in mathematics... I don't agree
    camdenreslink · 1790356957 · focus · HN ↗
    You used a calculator every time you needed to multiply or divide simple numbers while reducing matrices to echelon form in introductory linear algebra? Or when doing simple arithmetic necessary to find integrals and derivatives in calculus? I bet you in fact did have those tables memorized, even if it wasn't a conscious effort.
    singpolyma3 · 1790364291 · focus · HN ↗
    I wrote long columns of galloping additions in the margin because calculators weren't allowed.
    I mean yes, I have some "facts" in my memory because of repeated exposure. I know 2x2 and 5x5 but the whole table? Not a chance.
    Sohcahtoa82 · 1790362864 · focus · HN ↗
    I guarantee you that you've memorized these tables, you just didn't put any effort into deliberately doing it. It happened accidentally as you used numbers frequently.
    Of course, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you DO need to use a calculator to quickly tell me what 8 * 6 is. But I would be highly surprised if you got a degree in math and still needed a calculator for that.
    singpolyma3 · 1790364568 · focus · HN ↗
    For 8*6? I definitely don't know either of the 8 or 6 tables by memory.
    I of course know how to figure it out. Let's see my instinct might be to do 8x2 first because I do know most of the 2s. Then 16x3 I can do in a few steps of addition. 20+12+16 then 48
    And yes then I checked on my calculator because I'm posting this online and don't want to look like an idiot.
    zhivota · 1791075009 · focus · HN ↗
    That's actually impressive, I'll grant you that. You must have a larger than normal working memory to be able to load so many operations onto your memory stack.
    The tables are really not hard to memorize, for what it's worth, and it's very useful in every day life to know them.

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