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.
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.
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.
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 ↗
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.
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.