We know the gold standard for learning is one-to-one tutoring, where a more experienced expert providing focused guidance to a novice. This kind of apprenticeship model worked well for thousands of years, but doesn’t scale to meet the requirements of modern institutions.
However, large language models and generative AI can provide reasonably high-level expertise in an accessible, conversational interface that doesn’t require sophisticated hardware. This means that we can provide personal tutoring experiences to anyone, without the costs associated with typical approaches to personal tutoring.
For almost everyone in the world who doesn’t attend an elite university (i.e. almost everyone in the world), this represents an incredible learning opportunity to get access to a wide range of broad expertise.
It won’t be perfect. But it doesn’t need to be.
Comparing AI-tutoring to the best human-tutoring misses the point. Most people in the world don’t have access to the best human tutors. They don’t have access to any tutors. We’re not replacing the best human tutors with average AI tutors. We’re going to provide average tutors where none previously existed.
AI doesn’t need to be better than the best humans. It only needs to be cheaper than the average human.