Enter the Matrix

   I frankly have no idea what education will look like in the future, and frankly I’m a little worried. Don’t get me wrong, I want whatever form of education will be most effective for everyone. However, thinking about this as I drop several thousand dollars, money which I do not have right now, I would like to make sure I’m investing that money in a job that I can have for the rest of my life.

    Admittedly concern primarily comes from a YouTube video called “Digital Aristotle: Thoughts on the Future of Education.” The video currently has 2 million views on it, and was made by an educational YouTuber called CGP Grey. He has a Bachelors in Physics, and was a Physic’s teacher in the UK for a couple years.

    The overall point he was trying to make was that almost every job is now either already automated, or on its way to being automated. That includes the profession of teaching. He didn’t give hard details about how or when, he recognizes he doesn’t have that data, but recognizes that the best education is personalized education. There’s no way we can have enough teachers to make every single lesson personalized and in person taught to every student in the world, but that still would be the best way for everyone to learn in some respects. This is where Artificial Intelligence comes in.

    Almost all of us already carry a wildely complecated and incredibly expensive AI in our pocket that responds to our every wish after the phrase “Hey Siri” or “Ok Google”. That AI then responds to whatever we ask it with the best information humans have managed to upload on the internet.

    Now, we’ve all seen the ridiculous videos of Siri repeating words most people would easily be able to read, and hearing Siri read it in a way that almost seems like she wants us to make fun of her for it. But Siri is still new, and it’s already in plenty of people’s pockets. Siri listens to us, responds to us in full sentences, answers our questions, and reads digital information to us. Open a wiki page and ask Siri to read it for you. There’s your class on any possible article on wikipedia, which is plenty of subjects. How long until we have doctorate level courses taught and composed entirely without the active contribution of a breathing human?

    I recognize that learning is social, but we’re also already making movies about people falling in love with their digital assistants. It wont be too long until Siri and AI’s like it have personalities that shape themselves to match ours. Have that happen and professional teaching we know today is obsolete.

    This is a pretty open ended idea, and it bugs me to not have any concrete answers. I want good education, but I also want a job. I know there will at least be a transition period where we have teachers who are there to love kids, to interact with them while their parents are at school, but its difficult for me to not spiral in my thinking about the future of my career.