Artificial Intelligence & the 2 Sigma Problem

As arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) ramps up and we set­tle into a new norm of hav­ing a per­son­al assis­tant for every­thing our lives will slow­ly change. 

What knowl­edge is impor­tant and valu­able? What knowl­edge can we let die with this gen­er­a­tion? These dis­cus­sions may become com­mon­place as the exper­tise required to accom­plish dif­fer­ent tasks is slow­ly reduced. Simply put, things will become eas­i­er. How will this affect the edu­ca­tion field? Is eas­i­er always bet­ter?

To put this in con­text, AI can final­ly solve the 2 Sig­ma prob­lem (Bloom, 1984). With­in his research, Ben­jamin Bloom con­clud­ed that stu­dents with 1:1 tutor­ing per­formed two stan­dard devi­a­tions high­er than the base­line class (see graph). From 1984 until now the same obsta­cles have pre­vent­ed the mass deploy­ment of 1:1 tutors in our class­es. It is dif­fi­cult to find experts (let alone those who can tutor),  tutors cost mon­ey and tutors are only avail­able dur­ing select time win­dows. Don’t for­get that we need a tutor for every stu­dent, so mul­ti­ply the experts required in one field by 100. Only the mod­er­ate­ly wealthy could employ the solu­tion uncov­ered by Bloom.

Now with AI, each stu­dent in every class can ben­e­fit from a per­son­al tutor who charges noth­ing, is avail­able 24/7, and has expert knowl­edge in every dis­ci­pline imag­in­able. Our stu­dents could ALL expe­ri­ence a gain of two sig­ma.

Although this all seems incred­i­bly ben­e­fi­cial, we should pause and con­sid­er the effects of this approach with an ever-present tutor. Will our stu­dents ever expe­ri­ence the silent frus­tra­tion and strug­gle of a chal­leng­ing con­cept churn­ing in their minds? Is there still a ben­e­fit to a learn­er wrestling with the unknown? Will our stu­dents imme­di­ate­ly at the first sign of chal­lenge employ an AI tutor and sail over the obsta­cle? What effect will this have on a stu­dents abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate chal­lenges in their lives and future learn­ing?

As Fredrick Dou­glass so blunt­ly stat­ed back in 1857, “If there is no strug­gle, there is no progress.” Although these words were regard­ing a very dif­fer­ent cause, one could argue they are just as rel­e­vant now with the AI rev­o­lu­tion just start­ing to peek over the cul­tur­al hori­zon.

Inter­est­ing thoughts to con­sid­er as we pro­ceed into an era of AI…

Cheers,

David

 

Image cre­at­ed by David Johns

“The 2 Sig­ma Prob­lem: The Search for Meth­ods of Group Instruc­tion as Effec­tive as One-to-One Tutor­ing” (PDF), Edu­ca­tion Researcher, Ben­jamin Bloom

 

Author: David Johns, Teach­ing and Learn­ing Con­sul­tant, CTLI