• Billionaire Bill Gates speaks about the imminent and realistic prospect of AI illustrating the equivalent competency of any human teacher.
• Gates explains how AI will become more affordable than a Teacher’s/Tutor’s salary.
For better or worse, the memories of school etched in our minds, remain with us forever…entering and exiting the social bubble of coming of age, navigating our identities, first friendships, the embarrassments, the laughter.
We all had our stations in the classroom- the eager beaver, the teacher’s pet, the class clown, the bullied- the bully, the gossiper, the daydreamer, the shy one, the leader.
But what is it about this time in our life that makes it stand out from the rest of our years? Psychologist state that emotions are signalled to the brain, elucidating the importance of the teen years- much feedback is given to ourselves about our likes, our own skill set, our strengths and weaknesses.
The pastoral and social development of a young person is synonymous to their cognitive development; the academic journey of a student’s life is often enhanced through the empathetic responses of his/her Teacher, their facial expressions and body language igniting motivation, banter in the classroom, frustrations expressed and reward and gratitude experienced phenomenologically.
However, is all of this about to change? Are we heading towards Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, in which Teachers will be replaced by machinery?. We certainly all knew this was on the horizon- Bill Gates has made a prediction that our kids will soon learn how to read and write by AI intelligence within 18 months.
Recently, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates shared his thoughts on the future of AI and predicted that during the next few years, AI will “be as good a tutor as any human ever could.”
“At first, we’ll be most stunned by how it helps with reading, being a reading research assistant and giving you feedback on writing,” he told a crowd during his keynote speech at a digital learning conference in San Diego last week.
Microsoft Teams has already introduced the feature ‘Reading Progress’, which is currently being used in many classrooms across the UK, a program which detects the accuracy and fluency with which a student is able to read. ‘Reading Progress’ submits a report of mispronunciation, miscues and differentiates a student’s level, providing students and teachers alike with personalised feedback.
However, what Gates is eluding to, is far more advanced and superior in capability. He goes on to say, “If you just took the next 18 months, the AIs will come in as a teacher’s aide and give feedback on writing. And then they will amp up what we’re able to do in math. Our bottleneck in math really is more of how we fit in the overall system and getting that teacher adoption”.
In his blog post entitled ‘The Age of AI has begun’ (posted early this year), Gates reassured his readers, ‘Even once the technology is perfected…..it will enhance—but never replace—the work that students and teachers do together in the classroom.’ However, this is in stark contrast to comments he has made about Edtech being the solution to global equality in Education. The founder of the tech giant explained that AI-powered chatbots may charge but said that they will still be more accessible and affordable compared to traditional human tutoring. Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT have both enhanced their features rapidly within the last couple of months and are now reported to compete with human-level intelligence on some standardised tests.
If the predictions of Mr Gates materialise, we see that teachers will inevitably lose their traditional role- perhaps initially be used as classroom/technology assistants, and in a bid to further cut back on costs, it is very possible that this role will also eventually be diminished.
“We have very good tools today, that if they were fully adopted, would actually make more progress in math scores than we’ve made in the last 20 years. So my optimism about Edtech, in general, is not just because of AI. It is a set of things, even before this latest advance, that I think we’re getting smarter about and getting out into the field,” Mr Gates further stated.
However, is being taught by a teacher tantamount to being taught by a programmed robot? Surely synchronising in one globalist technocratic dragnet where are all digital slaves in all facets of our lives is a dangerous prospect. The LGBTQ agenda would only be enhanced further, as well as other ‘woke’ agendas such as Feminism, as a programmed ‘AI ‘Teacher’ will eliminate all orthodox religious Teachers of Abrahamic faiths who refuse to acquiesce in such agendas. This will only bring about more confusion in the minds of the youth, in a world where world leaders are unable to answer the simple question ‘what is a woman?’.
If you are not already familiar with the story of Moses (Musa AS) and Khidr, as told in the Quran- Moses’s quest to seek the man with more knowledge then himself transpires and through this series of teaching we too learn the imperative life lessons of patience, how one should never jump to assumptions- amongst other lessons about man, life and the universe. However, if Prophet Musa (As) did not have a human accompanying him on his learning journey, the wisdom imparted would not have been penetrative.
The teaching of knowledge is seen as holistic and a highly respected art in Islam. We are encouraged to sit at the feet of scholars and for good reason too.
It is therefore important to ask…’Are we heading towards a world where intelligence is valued over role models imparting wisdom?…only time will tell.
