I think personal AI/LLMs should be reserved for those 18 and older Not like ban them (I’m not a draconian old fart politician) I just mean in schools, have kids actually learn with books, source material, dialogue, seminars, experiments, play, so they can build a strong base and *then* utilize LLMs as a tool once that base level knowledge is acquired and brain muscles used and in shape.

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GJM 3 months ago
So are you saying that base level knowledge can’t be acquired via a personal AI/LLM prior to age 18?
I question what that looks like compared to young folks using their brain muscles more — learning to question and think, memorize and learn, cognitive skills. I fear that can be lost or severely damaged if most of that is offloaded to LLM in adolescence. But I could be an old man yelling at the sky 😂
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GJM 3 months ago
2 ways I would push back based on getting 3 kids through our school system. 1. Quality and quantity of source material available in AI/LLM vs even the most up to date books. Both mediums require a questioning mindset when engaging but I would argue that that skill is not dependent on the available information. There is now no excuse for not having access to a much richer information set vi AI than books. 2. Ham stringing learning paths because of catering to the group rather than the individual. One of my kids didn’t fit the educational systems version of the “ideal” student. He could do university level math in his head while in high school but because he was unable to write the “workings” down on paper with a pen (a tested and verified “learning disability”) they failed him. When tested verbally he was not only 3-4 years ahead of his classmates he was also able to demonstrate that he could arrive at the required answers every time. With hindsight I can see that a personalised AI/LLM would/could not only have pushed his innate ability further but also could have been used to test him in a way that was not tied to a system that was designed not to test individual depth but group shallowness. I could go on. As a parent looking both backward and forward, I would jump into AI/LLM assisted learning for my kids in a second!
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GJM 3 months ago
It’s the “personalised” aspect/approach that is the most compelling to me. Unfortunately I think that this aspect is probably the most disruptive at this stage as well.
Kids already know exactly how to learn - by starting with an application for the knowledge and working backwards, which is exactly how LLMs work The ground up education system (learning the basics) was a necessary function of the technology available to people for the last 500 years, but it’s backwards of our species natural tendencies
@Rod and @Danny Knowles covered similar grounds on a recent What Bitcoin Did podcast. Personally, I think it would be a massive mistake to stop kids from interacting with such important technology. However, I don't think the schooling system is effective enough to teach it properly (and safely) - let alone keep up with the speed with which the tech is progressing.