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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

#331

Post by cognitiveinline »

gverrilla wrote: post #263
havercosine wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for taking time to write this. HN is showing (expected) dismissing attitude towards this idea. That tells me it might work :) ! Folks here are wildly overestimating (or ignoring!) how many adults are qualified to be good teachers and how many of them further have enough incentives (money, time, resources) to do it well. Its a _very_ small number. In my part of the world, "become a teacher" is often a job advis…

Pay your teachers better.

How? Taxing you higher?

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

#332

Post by senordevnyc »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #98
jatins wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

This sounds like people who used to complain that they saw a website with bad info so obviously the internet should be avoided.

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

#333

Post by clarle »

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.

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

#334

Post by nomadygnt »

metalspot wrote: post #320
liendolucas wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI is a massive leap forward in providing safe and educational digital experience. Can you point to any serious studies that sustain that claim? If anything that sounds like a gamifying learning experience, letting children become expert beginners.

Can you point to any serious studies that show the opposite? No. They don't exist. There cannot be any serious studies until there is a generational cohort that can be evaluated for long term impact. But on a personal level I would vastly prefer my children use even a crappy AI chat app like Deepseek than watch Youtube. If you have young children and pay attention it would be almost impossible to come to a different…

He didn't make the opposite claim. You are the one that made the claim, meaning you have the burden of supporting it. If there are no studies then no credible claim can reasonably made.

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

#335

Post by anthonypasq »

jostylr wrote: post #219
UltraSane wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds a bit like unschooling which is a terrible idea because kids don't know what they need to know.

Think about what every adult absolutely needs to know: how to be an effective member of society, how to interact with people, how to self-regulate, and generally being a person other people want to be around and work with. That is what a Sudbury school supports learning while conventional school hinders it, offering an authoritarian-based lifestyle instead. Most people going through conventional school don't get the…

I suspect there are massive selection effects the are skewing the results here. I can imagine this being quite effective for intelligent, curious, and self-motivated kids and a complete and utter disaster for the average child.

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

#337

Post by ndriscoll »

zero-sharp wrote: post #321
ndriscoll wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's one interpretation: the system doesn't take of your specific needs and therefore it's neglectful or inadequate. Another interpretation is that the teacher is doing exactly what the school needs them to do because most 5 year olds aren't concerned with how air conditioners work. And perhaps it shouldn't be the responsibility of the kindergarten teacher to provide technical education? There's a conversation to b…

No one in this subthread said teachers aren't doing exactly what the schools need them to do; the OP you replied to said properly harnessed LLMs could be a boon for a smart, curious child. Why is that absurd for kindergartners? My oldest probably started asking me about everything she sees when she was 3. Curious, undeserved kindergartners exist.

The idea that they can be tailored to the needs and interests of every individual is the point.

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

#339

Post by cognitiveinline »

multiplegeorges wrote: post #245
mlmonkey wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're in crisis. As of 2025, 40% of fourth graders are reading below basic levels How much of this crisis is due to the social engineering being attempted in school districts across America? Case in point: San Francisco schools decided a couple of years ago that they would no longer teach Algebra in 8th grade. Why? Because too many kids of a certain demographic were failing it. So let's just not teach it! No class,…

> San Francisco schools decided a couple of years ago that they would no longer teach Algebra in 8th grade. This has nothing to do with this at all. We're talking about 4th grader literacy nationwide and you're talking about algebra in a single area in a different grade!? The second point where there aren't enough teachers nationwide (10% missing workforce) is probably because teachers are terribly paid, disrespected…

[flagged]

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

#340

Post by lern_too_spel »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #329
lern_too_spel wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make my earlier critique of your argument clearer, some applications of AI might be bad for society, but it does not follow that the tutoring application is also bad for society.

A responsible society would make sure that the applications have good results with adults before even thinking about applying it to children And despite the hype, the jury is still out for how the results are for adults using AI

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 product of such a system. Scaling that would be immensely valuable to society.

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