Remember that one teacher who made going to school fun and inspired you to pursue your passions? Students at a new charter school in Arizona won’t, because they don’t get to have teachers. Instead, the two hours of academic instruction they receive each day—yes, just two hours—will be directed entirely by AI.
By a 4-3 margin, the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools on Monday approved an application from Unbound Academy to open a fully online school serving grades four through eight. Unbound already operates a private school that uses its AI-dependent “2hr Learning” model in Texas and is currently applying to open similar schools in Arkansas and Utah.
Under the 2hr Learning model, students spend just two hours a day using personalized learning programs from companies like IXL and Khan Academy. “As students work through lessons on subjects like math, reading, and science, the AI system will analyze their responses, time spent on tasks, and even emotional cues to optimize the difficulty and presentation of content,” according to Unbound’s charter school application in Arizona. “This ensures that each student is consistently challenged at their optimal level, preventing boredom or frustration.”
Your last point is really the key one, isn’t it? Is a LLM reliable enough to be put in charge of supervising a child’s path of learning? I’ve messed around with local LLMs enough to realize that I’d better double check everything it gives me, as its goal is to tell me what I want to hear, not what is factual.
In rereading that it occurred to me that it was not very different from the worse of the teachers I have had long ago in the past…so take that as a warning, I guess.