Agree with everything you say here. I don’t have a 9th grader (yet!) but I tutored for years. The interpersonal component of tutoring absolutely dominates over the content component.
I think the “this time it’s different” argument is grounded not in “better content delivery” or “cheaper than a person”—which I agree are 100% not winning strategies.
Rather, the argument is some form of “so brilliantly delivered, so charmingly interpersonal, made so relevant to personal interests that even the most jaded, disinterested, burnt out 9th grader can’t help but learn the material”.
We’re not there yet, but even old-school automated tutors were fine at content and cheaper than a person. What modern AI brings is all the rest of what makes 1:1 tutoring great.
That’s what Karpathy et al should be building, IMHO!
I think the “this time it’s different” argument is grounded not in “better content delivery” or “cheaper than a person”—which I agree are 100% not winning strategies.
Rather, the argument is some form of “so brilliantly delivered, so charmingly interpersonal, made so relevant to personal interests that even the most jaded, disinterested, burnt out 9th grader can’t help but learn the material”.
We’re not there yet, but even old-school automated tutors were fine at content and cheaper than a person. What modern AI brings is all the rest of what makes 1:1 tutoring great.
That’s what Karpathy et al should be building, IMHO!