Should Chatbots Teach Your Children?

"Sal Kahn, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy predicted last year that AI tutoring bots would soon revolutionize education," writes long-time Slashdot reader theodp:theodp writes: His vision of tutoring bots tapped into a decades-old Silicon Valley dream: automated teaching platforms that instantly customize lessons for each student. Proponents argue that developing such systems would help close achievement gaps in schools by delivering relevant, individualized instruction to children faster and more efficiently than human teachers ever could. But some education researchers say schools should be wary of the hype around AI-assisted instruction, warning that generative AI tools may turn out to have harmful or "degenerative" effects on student learning. A ChatGPT-powered tutoring bot was tested last spring at the Khan Academy - and Bill Gates is enthusiastic about that bot and AI education in general (as well as the Khan Academy and AI-related school curriculums). From the original submission:Explaining his AI vision in November, Bill Gates wrote, "If a tutoring agent knows that a kid likes [Microsoft] Minecraft and Taylor Swift, it will use Minecraft to teach them about calculating the volume and area of shapes, and Taylor's lyrics to teach them about storytelling and rhyme schemes. The experience will be far richer-with graphics and sound, for example-and more personalized than today's text-based tutors." The New York Times article notes that similar enthusiasm greeted automated teaching tools in the 1960s, but predictions that that the mechanical and electronic "teaching machines' - which were programmed to ask students questions on topics like spelling or math - would revolutionize education didn't pan out. So, is this time different?

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