AI and singularity in education

Yuval Noah Harari distinguishes between intelligence and consciousness. Intelligence is the ability to solve problems and make decisions, while consciousness is associated with experiences (pain, joy, love) that lead to desire. AI is getting better and better, and there is a chance that it will be able to make decisions better than us (even if it will not feel pain, happiness or love). This post explores the point where the machine will be able to teach, in many aspects better than a flesh and blood teacher.

Singularity is a term taken from the field of mathematics and borrowed into other fields, from black holes to the future of the world. It means a point (physical or conceptual) after which we have no way of knowing what will happen. It is used a lot in the context of a future that includes machines that are smarter than humans. Singularity in this case is a point when a machine will surpass humans in many aspects and will know how to make decisions better than us. When this happens we have no way of knowing what will happen after. Maybe the new technology will be faithful to us as its creators, and maybe we will worship the machine, maybe the machine will decide to use us (see Matrix) or give us a comfortable life and fulfill all our needs without effort (see Wall-E)…

What is singularity in education? At the moment it is very clear what the teacher is skilled in – teaching, educating, mentoring, getting to know a student, advising… and it is quite clear what the machine is good at – storing information and retrieving it, calculating complex calculations, dealing with a large amount of data… except that in the near future (a few years – see post “AI – when will all this ‘goodness’ happen”) it will no longer be clear what belongs to the teacher and what belongs to the machine. The machine has learned to understand human language, draw, compose, write software… it is not impossible that it will also learn to teach, advise, recognize the qualities of the student and track his achievements. When the machine learns how to do all this better than a flesh and blood teacher, this will be the singularity in education, from that point on, the education system will not be the same place as we know it.

Ray Kurzweil, an influential futurist, in his book ‘The Singularity is Near’ claims that within a few years we will reach this point, and offers his own scenario: the technology and we will unite and there will be no difference between us, we will bring into the aforementioned partnership abilities unique to us such as originality, creativity, empathy, love, and technology will bring its strengths such as the ability to solve problems and make decisions.

The education system can wait for the arrival of the singularity, and when it occurs, we will improvise and find solutions (maybe?). On the other hand, we can try to prepare, since there may be a situation where the machine will know how to teach better than a teacher in many aspects, but the teacher will still have substantial advantages over the machine. Therefore, if we adopt Kurzweil’s solution, it is appropriate to look for the areas in which the teacher will be superior to the machine in order to produce a winning combination between the teacher’s skills and the machine’s abilities.

In my estimation, it will take a long time (if at all) until the machine learns to fear, love, develop originality, a sense of humor, empathy, curiosity, criticism and other such “human” qualities, and above all, it will take time until the machine learns to ask questions. Therefore, it is advisable to emphasize these qualities right now, from recruiting teachers with high leadership, creativity and social abilities, to training existing teachers with an emphasis on these qualities.

On a second thought, I think it is worth adopting this approach even if we don’t reach the singularity.

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