I'm on the same boat, negatively affected by AI. I'm the CEO and founder of an EdTech company and our B2C revenue has greatly decreased as a result of Gen AI.
But unlike the author of this post (or cited authors) I'm not sore. AI is providing a much better education model for students. So it's us that we have to adapt, not complain that the world is changing.
For example, in Machine Learning our projects are sometimes extremely long and repetitive. Because before AI, it was a valuable skill to be able to recall APIs quickly (what is the method to drop duplicates in a dataframe again?).
But today that's no longer the truth, and for the better. I am happy students don't have to go over the same repetitive low-value processes that I had to go to.
Students can now focus on more high level valuable tasks: understand the domain, compare evaluation methods, compare models, balance tradeoffs, present solutions/reports, etc.
It's like in the 50s when students had to memorize tables of logarithms. Nobody misses that.
We are in the process of recreating all our projects to adapt to the new world. We'll see how it goes.
> But today that's no longer the truth, and for the better. I am happy students don't have to go over the same repetitive low-value processes that I had to go to. Students can now focus on more high level valuable tasks: understand the domain, compare evaluation methods, compare models, balance tradeoffs, present solutions/reports, etc. It's like in the 50s when students had to memorize tables of logarithms. Nobody misses that.
Maybe when it comes to any coding-related learning, I can agree with that point.
However I think the future of education in general is very bleak. When we have plummeting scores for the PISA exam across the world [1], I fear people will get dumber and dumber.
There will always be those who thrive, but the easier it is to obtain information/knowledge, the less I think people have an incentive to do it. And I don't buy that AI will solve all intellectual jobs anyway.
PISA exam scores are a lagging indicator with many years of lag. I doubt the reason of that is AI. Mobile phones? Social media? Any other multi causal reason (poor eating, anxiety, low testosterone, whatever), most likely, but not AI.
Says who? Children/students effectively lost months of education and socialization in their formative years. They've been warning about this before AI even entered the picture.
I'm sure AI is going to do even more damage but COVID was an important factor here as well.
If you think that’s a lagging indicator, the many reports from teachers and from self reports from students and even adults trying to learn also point in the same direction. See what’s happening with exams and homework exercises.
Education itself has lost access to the tools that were making it cheaper and easier to teach.
Learning something is a side effect of overcoming friction. AI removes friction.
I’m using ChatGPT to learn German. I can immediately adjust its responses and language level(it says I’m at A2/B1) and tell it how I want to study.
I find it to be a far superior tool than anything else I’ve used.
What happens when the big AI labs go public and must start earning a profit for investors. The price increases 10x¹ and it suddenly becomes excessively expensive for ~80 of society to access.
If education is all dependent on the use of AI, then we're cutting off everyone but the most wealthy from access to education. Seems very regressive to me.
1. This is an assumption but I think it's fairly well established that current LLM prices are far below operating costs of inference, so prices will go up, maybe not 10x but some multiple > 1
Here’s a counter analysis - would you see the difference between your individual, motivated efforts to learn vs the experience of learning at scale, for all other students ?
There’s a lot of individual anecdotal responses that people come up with in these threads, and I’m happy for the positive examples.
I do think people are capable of extrapolating, especially since all of us have the experience of seeing students wanting to escape studies as kids.
It’s identical to the gym problem, everyone wants to be healthy and fit, but the effort sucks and we avoid it.
Education at scale is the same issue. We basically nurture/force crops of students over a 20 year time span.
Education is not for helping a motivated person to learn a language, it's for teaching an entire population on many different subjects.
The people who wanted and could learn by themselves always had the possibility to do it with books, audio and videos, and AI just add a layer of interactivity on top. Self-learning never replaced standard education, even in the high bourgeois class because they answer to different problematics.
There is a massive difference between a person learning a topic they have an actual interest in, and someone who is forced into a learning system alongside their peers. Especially since we're talking about kids.
ChatGPT might work for you learning German because you have a reason to care about learning it, but for most kids the goal of school is getting good grades, not learning.
Sorry for the tangent, but if you don't mind can you explain more how you're using it effectively? Are you speaking using "Live" mode or typing? Is it remembering and planning lessons for you or is that on you to do?
I had already studied German as a teenager(I’m 40 now) and I speak Swedish which is a bit similar.
The first thing I did was ask it to continuously adjust its difficulty level based on my replies(A1-C1), it told me I’m in the A2-B1 span. Then I formalised my training on Akkusativ and Dativ, which is basically A2 level.
I have structured the lessons like this:
Every day I wake up with a new lesson. It starts with the nominativ/dativ/akkusativ table. Now I’ve also added wechselpräpositionen including translation to Swedish. It then gives me 5 sentences for me to fill out. If I have time and energy, I continue the exercises throughout the day.
This allows me to continue the practice at my own pace and at my own time.
I only type and read. I can already pronounce quite well but this may be the next step.
santiagobasulto · · focus · HN ↗
But unlike the author of this post (or cited authors) I'm not sore. AI is providing a much better education model for students. So it's us that we have to adapt, not complain that the world is changing.
For example, in Machine Learning our projects are sometimes extremely long and repetitive. Because before AI, it was a valuable skill to be able to recall APIs quickly (what is the method to drop duplicates in a dataframe again?).
But today that's no longer the truth, and for the better. I am happy students don't have to go over the same repetitive low-value processes that I had to go to. Students can now focus on more high level valuable tasks: understand the domain, compare evaluation methods, compare models, balance tradeoffs, present solutions/reports, etc.
It's like in the 50s when students had to memorize tables of logarithms. Nobody misses that.
We are in the process of recreating all our projects to adapt to the new world. We'll see how it goes.
danjovich · · focus · HN ↗
Maybe when it comes to any coding-related learning, I can agree with that point.
However I think the future of education in general is very bleak. When we have plummeting scores for the PISA exam across the world [1], I fear people will get dumber and dumber.
There will always be those who thrive, but the easier it is to obtain information/knowledge, the less I think people have an incentive to do it. And I don't buy that AI will solve all intellectual jobs anyway.
[1] <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/pisa-2026-results-reading-math-scores/a-79147293" rel="nofollow">https://www.dw.com/en/pisa-2026-results-reading-math-scores/...
santiagobasulto · · focus · HN ↗
thunderfork · · focus · HN ↗
sodapopcan · · focus · HN ↗
alephnerd · · focus · HN ↗
User23 · · focus · HN ↗
dns_snek · · focus · HN ↗
I'm sure AI is going to do even more damage but COVID was an important factor here as well.
someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
alephnerd · · focus · HN ↗
intended · · focus · HN ↗
Education itself has lost access to the tools that were making it cheaper and easier to teach.
Learning something is a side effect of overcoming friction. AI removes friction.
Gud · · focus · HN ↗
I’m using ChatGPT to learn German. I can immediately adjust its responses and language level(it says I’m at A2/B1) and tell it how I want to study.
I find it to be a far superior tool than anything else I’ve used.
20after4 · · focus · HN ↗
If education is all dependent on the use of AI, then we're cutting off everyone but the most wealthy from access to education. Seems very regressive to me.
1. This is an assumption but I think it's fairly well established that current LLM prices are far below operating costs of inference, so prices will go up, maybe not 10x but some multiple > 1
intended · · focus · HN ↗
There’s a lot of individual anecdotal responses that people come up with in these threads, and I’m happy for the positive examples.
I do think people are capable of extrapolating, especially since all of us have the experience of seeing students wanting to escape studies as kids.
It’s identical to the gym problem, everyone wants to be healthy and fit, but the effort sucks and we avoid it.
Education at scale is the same issue. We basically nurture/force crops of students over a 20 year time span.
poulpy123 · · focus · HN ↗
The people who wanted and could learn by themselves always had the possibility to do it with books, audio and videos, and AI just add a layer of interactivity on top. Self-learning never replaced standard education, even in the high bourgeois class because they answer to different problematics.
sensanaty · · focus · HN ↗
ChatGPT might work for you learning German because you have a reason to care about learning it, but for most kids the goal of school is getting good grades, not learning.
djeastm · · focus · HN ↗
Gud · · focus · HN ↗
The first thing I did was ask it to continuously adjust its difficulty level based on my replies(A1-C1), it told me I’m in the A2-B1 span. Then I formalised my training on Akkusativ and Dativ, which is basically A2 level.
I have structured the lessons like this:
Every day I wake up with a new lesson. It starts with the nominativ/dativ/akkusativ table. Now I’ve also added wechselpräpositionen including translation to Swedish. It then gives me 5 sentences for me to fill out. If I have time and energy, I continue the exercises throughout the day.
This allows me to continue the practice at my own pace and at my own time.
I only type and read. I can already pronounce quite well but this may be the next step.