As AI “teachers” come closer to being reality, a warning:
Aura found that kids use AI for companionship 42% of the time, and over a third of those interactions involve talk about violence. Half of those interactions combine violence with sexual roleplay. A study by Common Sense Media finds larger numbers, with 72% of teens reporting they have used an AI companion and 52% saying they use AI companions a few times a month or more.
Humans are built for connection. With other humans.
Children crave companionship – and they are finding it in AI bots.
Katya Schwenk takes a deeper dive into this horror-scape.
Academic instruction in Price’s schools is delivered via a suite of online education apps for two hours per day, leaving the afternoons free for Cybertruck construction and tech CEO make-believe. This is the brand around which her work revolves: 2 Hour Learning, which is billed as an “AI tutor” that can entirely replace all classroom teachers via a few hours spent glued to a laptop screen.
And, this bad idea is multiplying:
Buoyed by the hype, 2 Hour Learning is seeing rapid expansion. In January, Price was approved to launch a virtual charter school in Arizona, 2 Hour Learning’s first foray into public education. The company claims that this fall, seven new brick-and-mortar private schools, from New York to Florida to California, will open their doors to students.
“Interestingly, we observe significantly improved student test scores in the second year of the ban (about 2-3 percentiles higher than the year before the ban) when suspensions revert to pre-ban levels.”
The study, which is not peer-reviewed, also noted a decline in unexcused absences, which researchers say may have contributed to the higher academic performance.
The data indicate that a ban may initially cause disciplinary challenges as students and families adjust. However, the study notes that those issues resolve in a second year – Researchers did suggest that as much as half of the improvement in student scores may be the result of improved attendance.
It will be interesting to see results in other districts to see if similar results are shown – and what, if any, negative impacts occur.
And how the hell are students supposed to feel about being required to get their grade by chatting with a bot? What would they learn beyond how to talk to the bots to get the best assessment? Why should any student make a good faith attempt to speak about their learning when no responsible human is making a good faith attempt to listen to them?
