I think part of the reason AI is having such a negative effect on schools in particular is because of how many education processes are reliant on an archaic, broken way of "learning." So much of it is focused upon memorization and regurgitation of information (which AI is unmatched at doing).
School is packed with inefficiency and busywork that is completely divorced from the way people learn on their own. In fact, it's pretty safe to say you could learn something about 10x by typing it into an AI chat bot and having it tailor the experience to you.
Teachers worry about AI because they do not just care about memorization. Before AI, being able to write cohesive essays about a subject is a good proxy to prove your understanding beyond simple memorization. Now it's gone.
A lazy, irresponsible teacher who only cares about memorization will just grade students via in-class multi choices tests exclusively and call it a day. They don't need to worry about AI at all.
> Before AI, being able to write cohesive essays about a subject is a good proxy to prove your understanding beyond simple memorization. Now it's gone.
Take-homes were never a good proxy for anything because any student can pay for private "lessons" and get their homework done for them.
> A lazy, irresponsible teacher who only cares about memorization will just grade students via in-class multi choices tests exclusively and call it a day. They don't need to worry about AI at all.
What stops a diligent responsible teacher from doing in-class essays?
Yes, the biggest problem with authentic exercises is evaluating the students' actions and giving feedback. The problem is that authentic assessments didnt previous scale (e.g. what worked in 1:1 coaching or tutoring couldn't be done for a whole classroom). But AI can scale them.
It seems like AI will destroy education but it's only breaking the old education system, it will also enable a new and much better one. One where students make more and faster progress developing more relevant and valuable skills.
Education system uses multiple choice quizzes and tests because their grading can be automated.
But when evaluation of any exercise can be automated with AI, such that students can practice any skill with iterative feedback at the pace of their own development, so much human potential will be unlocked.
> So much of it is focused upon memorization and regurgitation of information (which AI is unmatched at doing).
No, lots of classes are focused on producing papers which aren't just memorization and regurgitation, but generative AI is king at... Generating text... So that class of work output is suspect now
Memorizing and tests at school are the archaic approach that schools don't believe in anymore (at least the school board my kids are at), but they happen to be AI proof.
It's the softer, no memorizing, no tests, just assignments that you can hand in at anytime because there's no deadlines, and grades don't matter, type of education that is particularly useless with AI.
> So much of it is focused upon memorization and regurgitation of information, which AI is unmatched at doing.
This applies both to education, and to what people need to know to do work. Knowing all the written stuff is less valuable. Automated tools can been able to look it up since the Google era. Now they can work with what they look up.
There was a time when programmers poured over Fundamental Algorithms. No one does that today. When needed, you find existing code that does that stuff. Probably better than you could write. Who codes a hash table today?
The way you learn is totally different from the way a novice learns; they don't have a vast memorised store of knowledge, let alone the connected structure over that memorised knowledge. When you learn something, it gets incoporated thanks to these foundations.
School is packed with inefficiency and busywork that is completely divorced from the way people learn on their own. In fact, it's pretty safe to say you could learn something about 10x by typing it into an AI chat bot and having it tailor the experience to you.