Comment by teachrdan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by teachrdan | Hacker News Reader

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"Scaling one-on-one tutoring is seen by many experts and researchers as the silver bullet for human cognitive development"

While I admire the author's intentions, this is completely the wrong approach. There are multiple reasons why having actual human tutors is important:

0. The creation of a deep, long-lasting relationship between tutor and tutee

1. The benefits to the tutee: the feeling of pride in helping the younger generation, building empathy and understanding of what the younger generation is doing

2. The tutee is inspired to pass along their knowledge to others later in life; they learn how to tutor by being tutored, thus continuing the cycle

That last point is important. Even if a perfect Primer were created, how would it improve with time? If it truly replaced tutoring, then the art of tutoring would be lost forever, and it'd be up to software engineers to determine the metrics by which to measure the success of the Primer's tutoring algorithm.

Of course, that would never happen. Instead, tutoring by Primer would be reserved for poor people who didn't have tutors in their lives--or who had potential tutors who were scared off by the notion that they were not as effective the Primer. Then, in those communities, organic tutoring--an institution that has existed since literally the beginning of humanity--would be amputated and replaced by whatever tutoring the Primer's developers saw fit.

Real tutoring would, of course, be preserved for the ruling elite. Which I think is what happens in the book, come to think of it.

Of course I could be completely wrong. But this is the peril of MOOCs in general: students who go to first-tier schools like Harvard and Oxford get personalized instruction, while everyone else gets video lectures while glorified TAs proctor exams.[0]

0. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Professors-at-San-Jose...

'Professors in the philosophy department at San Jose State University are refusing to teach a philosophy course developed by edX, saying they do not want to enable what they see as a push to "replace professors, dismantle departments, and provide a diminished education for students in public universities."'

I haven't read the book in years, but from my recollection, there were three girls given the Primer; the narrator of the primer was a cloud-provided mocap/voice actor, running from an AI generated script.

For one of the girls, a single actress performed the majority of it, for the another it was whomever was available, the third would be a bit of a spoiler, so I won't say here. This was pointed to as one of the differences, with the single "tutor" being superior (their socio-economic statuses were far different as well).

It is true in the book that scaling it for the masses required pure-CG and was considered significantly inferior. Personalized instruction by an expert in the field has always been the realm of the privileged, so it's not necessarily a fault of a technology that it doesn't change this.

It's not clear that the results for Nell are "better", all three girls who recieve Runcible in its original form have outcomes as prescribed. They become independent of the Victorian mainstream. They aren't like the other girls. Nell founds a new group allied to the Victorians, Fiona is last seen among secretive London actors in some unspecified undertaking, and Elizabeth joins CryptNet, whose true purpose is anyone's guess.

The primers given to the Mouse Army are not just Runcible without a ractor. Hackworth reflexively, even unconsciously proposes something more, he says something about them being made culturally appropriate or something. Doctor X doesn't see this for the threat it really is. All those little girls are being set up by Hackworth to depend on an outside leader, whereas the girls who receive Runcible are completely independent. And the Mouse Army answer not to Doctor X or even to Hackworth but to Nell.

I had missed the point that Hackworth's cultural modifications were what led to the mouse army. I'll have to read it yet another time.

> 0. The creation of a deep, long-lasting relationship between tutor and tutee

I have spent over a decade in school and this has literally never happened to me. I went to second rate middle/high schools, so maybe teachers in "good" schools have some deep insight which makes interactions with them actually desirable?

In any way, this desperately does not scale, at the current ratios you would require a single teacher having "deep, long-lasting" relationships with ~hundred students at once, which just isn't feasible.

Even if every adult in the society got involved, the proportion drops by just about an order of magnitude. I can't imagine myself tutoring a single child, let alone ten of them!

Tutoring children are what parents (are suppose to) do. Maybe if society enters the much talked about post-scarcity mode, humans tutoring each other is something we could spend a lot more time doing. I know I'd enjoy it.

But why would we spend precious time personally tutoring our children when we could use the earnings we would forfeit to bid up real estate in neighborhoods with good schools, where our children can compete for 1/30th of the attention of somebody who probably doesn’t care about them all that much?

I believe the key word is: "scaling"

Great tutors are great. Irreplaceable. There are approximately 900 of them in the world. Good luck hiring one of them for your child.

For an example of what kids can do in highschool, when well tutored - by excellent private tutors, look up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalik_Buterin

AYLIP could be the major contribution of the recent boom in AI. Not just in enriching a few scummy FANGs, but actually providing real value to society.

Where do you get the 900 figure from?

You're missing the point entirely.

Yes, human tutors are better, but what do you do when human tutors aren't available? Or when they can't teach you something you want to know?

That's exactly the story in The Diamond Age, the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer lands in the hands of a girl with no money and an abusive father.

Not abusive, dead. Bud dies in the prologue. The guy sexually abusing Nell is another of Tequila's boyfriends, and her brother's violent street gang "solves" that problem.

While I agree with your overall sentiment, a primer could improve over time if it were a true AI. Though that would be concerning in itself as then at some point, the AI decides what humanity's children should learn, and can start to manipulate human society. Though maybe it would do a better job than we have been.

Why shouldnt the same thing as happens in the book happen on a voluntary basis? A second app connecting to the tutor, basically providing open source education..

Diamond Age included a remote human tutor who acted as various characters in the imaginary world of the YLIP.

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