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Building a real-time AI tutor for 5-year-olds

ello.com

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Re: Building a real-time AI tutor for 5-year-olds

#91

Without malice, I bring up GPT-Live-1. How does this compare and/or make you consider things? I've been very impressed with response speed, intonation, and naturalness to the voice. I argue it might be too natural with some of it's pausing and saying "ummm" and other filler words to the point it might be disingenuous but that's neither here nor there.

Ding, came here wondering the same. I do find it amusing, this "AI work" where people try to solve an issue and the lab (or whatever you want to call them) just makes the entire problem moot.

Re: Building a real-time AI tutor for 5-year-olds

#92
post #84

This has fabulous potential if implemented right. To all the detractors, I would like to point out that your opinion of kids needing a good human teacher is overfit to your experience of having had some of those growing up. In third world countries like mine, we grow up with absolutely unqualified teachers who were unable to muster anything but a learnt-by-rote understanding of key concepts. In hindsight these were j…

> your opinion of kids needing a good human teacher is overfit to your experience of having those growing up None of the AI stuff has been proven to be safe or effective for kids going thru an extremely important growth time for personality development and relational attachment. Your experience of having bad teachers doesn’t negate that the best way we know to enrich kids lives is to have effective and empathetic hum…

> is to have effective and empathetic human teachers

In the vast majority of the developing world, there are hardly any of those!

Here's a glimpse of what public education in India is like:

https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/the-sorry-state-of-education-in-in...

Re: Building a real-time AI tutor for 5-year-olds

#93
post #72
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them don't get access. So let's hook them up to an insane, unproven, unpredictable autocomplete math equation and entrust it to their development as a human being. So gross.

Heaven forbid we let poor people use software that helps their kids read. If they can't afford a tutor, they deserve nothing. (Am I doing this right?)

Your reaction is based on 3 unproven assertions:

* An AI tutor is a net positive in learning for the subject matter it covers.

* An AI tutor does not cause other harms.

* An AI tutor is going to be cheap enough that someone who cannot afford a human tutor will still be able to afford an AI tutor.

I'm mostly willing to give the benefit of the doubt on the first point, but the third point seems unlikely, and history has given us no shortage of reasons to distrust tech companies on the second point, even if we assume this company can be trusted now.

Re: Building a real-time AI tutor for 5-year-olds

#95

The reality is, most 5 year olds don’t get access to the resources most of us have had while growing up. People are saying, “kids should have human tutors.” Guys, most people in the world don’t have any tutors! What Ello has built and other forms of AI-based tutoring is going to raise the average level of education and literacy in the world. Especially in developing countries. Let individual parents decide what’s bes…

"AI-based tutoring is going to raise the average level of education and literacy in the world"

Without exception every claim made to date about tech boosting educational outcomes has been provably false. As in, adding tech to the education process results in measurably less education, and this finding seems to track across all age cohorts. Furthermore, unless parents have significant education credentials they aren't qualified to make informed decisions on what's best for their kids in this context.

Re: Building a real-time AI tutor for 5-year-olds

#96

I'm a mom who actually has kids and this thread is insane. 'Just get a tutor'...okay?? Are you paying for it? Because that's not an option for a lot of families. I get that it's more ideal, but the alternative is...nothing? Do you not agree that all kids deserves a chance to read? Are we not seeing the lack of reading proficiency in the majority of American adults nowadays?? Or yall too stuck in your tech bubbles?? T…

>There are high school students graduating who cannot do math.

Then the problem is that they are graduating, no? We need to address the fundamental issues in schools, if there is no consequence to poor grades and you can still graduate without doing math then what's the point of even having school and doing math. I'm not even against AI tutors, though I'm not even sure really why there needs to even be an "AI" component, just computer learning aides seem reasonable. But if we can't figure out how to improve education with computer learning aides yet I don't really see how AI is going to improve the situation. It's just a more expensive way of doing things.

I keep seeing lines like 40% of 8th graders can't read etc.. then they shouldn't be in the 8th grade. Although IME with my kids, nieces, nephews etc it doesn't even seem true as they are all learning much more than I was at the same age.

Re: Building a real-time AI tutor for 5-year-olds

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could encourage parents to take an active role in tutoring their kids but I guess that's just entirely out of the question? Nah. Let's have AI do it

Yeah tell them to change things.. why didn't we think of that? Provide opportunities to make parenting less stressful like here so that they can involve more.. this reflexive anti AI luddite attitude isn't productive as it's just less signal and more noise..

"reflexive anti AI luddite attitude"

That's awfully reductive there, champ. Most critiques of AI are based on some combination of observed failings of the technology, observed failings of the tech industry writ large, and healthy skepticism in the face of Yet Another Tech Industry Hype Typhoon. Anyway, the burden of proof isn't on skeptics, it's on the technology and it's proponents, so let's see some receipts before we agree to squander limited public resources on unproven systems yeah?

Re: Building a real-time AI tutor for 5-year-olds

#98
post #73
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them don't get access. So let's hook them up to an insane, unproven, unpredictable autocomplete math equation and entrust it to their development as a human being. So gross.

> insane, unproven, unpredictable autocomplete math equation It won IMO, solved Erdos problems. At what point will you stop saying that?

Probably when it stops agreeing with me when I tell it that industrial quantities of garlic salt are an acceptable substitution for coco powder in a chocolate mousse recipe...

Re: Building a real-time AI tutor for 5-year-olds

#99
post #89

The reality is, most 5 year olds don’t get access to the resources most of us have had while growing up. People are saying, “kids should have human tutors.” Guys, most people in the world don’t have any tutors! What Ello has built and other forms of AI-based tutoring is going to raise the average level of education and literacy in the world. Especially in developing countries. Let individual parents decide what’s bes…

5 year old kids should have enough play time with their peers and develop their social skills, instead of being sat in front of a screen with any kind of content. I feel a parallel between this and people defending short form video saying "but sometimes it's educational!" (it's not).

There's more than enough time in a day for a 5 year old to play with other kids and also spend some time learning.
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