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.”
Spending less time on traditional curriculum frees up the rest of students’ days for life-skill workshops that cover “financial literacy, public speaking, goal setting, entrepreneurship, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving,” according to the Arizona application.
I feel like it’s even bigger than that. Since the AI boom it’s become increasingly clear that our society has completely devalued humanity as a social concept. Companies acting like it’s terrible to ever interact with another human. Schools acting like teaching is something to be automated. Dating apps trying to integrate AI to message people for you. Our society is going insane.
I think that dynamic predates AI, at least in it’s current form. As far as I know people have become separate and more anonymous and more alone for some time now. That got out of hand with technology in general. Videogames, surfing the web. Looking at phone screens all the time. And spending a lot of time on social media instead of in the real world.
Though we had people complaining even before that. I think I once read some very old text complaining about kids reading too much and spending their times in a fantasy world.
That doesn’t invalidate the current situation. A lot of that has indeed become problematic. And though there are AI therapists and teachers, I strongly suspect they’re going to make everything way worse than it already is.