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

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

#351

Post by lern_too_spel »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #347
lern_too_spel wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has tried to systematically apply AI tutoring for adults. AI tutoring for children is easier because there are more people who understand the domains that need to be taught to children and can evaluate if the children have grasped the concepts appropriately. It is clear that a personal human tutor can achieve incredible results, and almost everybody who has revolutionized any field you might think of is a prod…

> AI tutoring for children is easier We shouldn't do questionable shit just because it's easier

We should do it because of the huge benefits to society. The fact that it is easier than doing something with marginal benefit is why we should do it first.

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

#352

Post by thenatureboy »

LocalH wrote: post #8
28304283409234 wrote: post #4

Please don't. Don't deprive children of the interaction with other human beings. 5 year olds don't need tutors. They need play, touch, sense, feel, run, breath, sky, earth.

Some 5 year olds could use a human tutor. Giving them AI instead is no different than plopping them in front of "Youtube Kids" instead of being a parent.

Not every one can afford or obtain a tutor. Good talk though

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

#353

Post by jplusequalt »

hannofcart wrote: post #80

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…

>I can assure you that no matter what concerns you may have about hallucinations in LLMs, I can bet everything I have that a reasonably modern model (and I'm thinking in the range of gemini-flash, not Fable) in a well designed harness geared towards tutoring would handily and repeatedly outperform every single teacher I had all throughout my schooling.

What are the *social* ramifications of an education system where children learn increasingly from AI tutors, while staring at a screen in a classroom for multiple hours a day?

Children need to spend time interacting with other children, as well as with adults. We have a mountain worth of data that children have become addicted to their devices, why are we doubling down on this by including MORE screen time at such an early age?

>If implemented right

This same argument could be applied to any technology, or policy that has ever been created. But we don't live in a world where people can do things the right way because of any number of externalities that muddies the actual implementation.

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

#354

Post by thenatureboy »

lowsong wrote: post #172

What you're building should be illegal. Educators who use these tools on children should face jail time. It's hard to overstate the harm of the system you are building. Please understand, there is no way this idea is salvageable or any tweaks or safeguards can make it safe. If you've actually tested this on real children you've already risked extreme harm. Please, stop.

hyperbole much?

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

#355

Post by thenatureboy »

tristor wrote: post #256

As someone who has been engaged in children's lives in the age range of 4-9 that have struggled with school, I can't imagine using AI being a net benefit to them. You know what helped me succeed in helping these children more than anything else? Listening to them. That's it. Listening to them to understand their viewpoint and perspective on the world, their interest areas, and the things they were curious about. Then…

> Not every child has the benefit of involved adults in their life, but I'd rather solve that problem than think AI is going to fix this.

There is no clean fix to this problem and there never will be. Attacking anyone who tries to come up w/ a plausible solution is not the answer. And calling everything that you don't like evil is just childish. People deserve to have these tools at their disposal to at least ATTEMPT to improve their children's reading skills.

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

#357

Post by cognitiveinline »

liendolucas wrote: post #296

Please, no. The last thing a child need is a screen. Give children books, creative toys, teach them read, enjoy music, do science or any activity always with a human companion and let it be disconnected from the virtual world. Children do not need screens to learn. I didn't need one when I was a kid, nor endless generations either needed it. Why are we trying to push everything through an LLM?

> Give children books, creative toys, teach them read, enjoy music, do science or any activity always with a human companion

Privileged much?

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

#359

Post by uoaei »

metalspot wrote: post #350
uoaei wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the broad anecdotal consensus that Duolingo, a gamified language app, famously does not do much if anything to prepare people for conversational fluency.

"broad anecdotal consensus" very scientific. i don't disagree, but is it better than youtube? tiktok? instagram? (cocaine? meth? fentanyl?)

Multiple things can be bad for different qualitative reasons.

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

#360

Post by jplusequalt »

clarle wrote: post #333
TonyAlicea10 wrote: post #201

I think teaching a child to trust an LLM from a formative age is horrifically irresponsible. If anything, an app should be made where a child learns to correct an LLM's mistakes and learn that it isn't trustworthy. Actually, better, don't put an LLM in front of children. At all. EDIT: If a use case is for children who can't afford good education, then use an LLM to make educational materials for children, review them…

I think a Socratic Method-style AI tutor would work, though. It would be less about the LLM providing direct educational material themselves, but making sure the student is thinking about the right questions to direct themselves in learning the material.

How do you ensure the kid is learning the right material? You want them to stay on topic, but a Socratic Method that starts off on one topic can easily branch into many other topics, and then suddenly your student has spent the whole class learning about something other than what they were supposed to.

All learning is good, yes. But a baseline curriculum is necessary to create a ground floor of knowledge for society.

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