Comment on Louisiana schools use Artificial Intelligence to help young children learn to read

• gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Exactly, they’re a captive audience, and moreover they are legally incompetent to consent to a contracted business relationship like this

  If this was a department of education AI or even some kind of transparently administered non-profit organization I’d be fine with this, but the fact that this is being developed for some for profit company that can just jack their rates and cut off public schools whenever they want to is bullshit. Like, I’m not opposed to the technology of LLMs at all, I think they’re actually pretty neat, but our social and economic systems have a lot of exploitative trash in them that can end up making cool technologies forces for evil.

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  • eldereko@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Do you think the department of education writes the textbooks, standardized tests (SAT, ACT, etc.), grading and student management software, learning management systems (Google Classroom, Canvas), or manufactures its own classroom tech (Chromebooks, tablets)? The education system is full of for-profit businesses that can jack up the prices, and they do. The DOE simply doesn’t have the resources to create these things themselves and would cost them far more if they tried. The only new thing here is the AI, the business model has existed forever

    Personally, I’m more concerned with the use of Google products in schools. A company that’s sole business is harvesting user data and selling it to advertisers should have no place in schools or children’s products.

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    • actually@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      There is a difference between the old fashioned scams with textbooks, and the new AI scams. Its true they have a lot of things in common. But the AI scams are more centralized, more powerful, can make more money. These are forging new ways to con people.

      But we have gone through several generations of new scams, they are not all bad. Such greed and kickbacks are probably healthier than realized and contribute to a stable society somehow in a way that escapes me, but I feel is valid

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    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Do you think the department of education writes the textbooks, standardized tests (SAT, ACT, etc.), grading and student management software, learning management systems (Google Classroom, Canvas), or manufactures its own classroom tech (Chromebooks, tablets)?

      Each one of those has a bunch of particular nuances, but in general - yeah, I think they could and should in a lot of those cases

      The education system is full of for-profit businesses that can jack up the prices, and they do.

      Yeah, it’s a big problem with a lot of little parts to be tackled

      The DOE simply doesn’t have the resources to create these things themselves

      Then government should give them the resources (actually, I think a whole separate agency that develops open source software for any government agency or anyone else who wants to use them should be established, but that’s kind of besides the point).

      and would cost them far more if they tried

      I don’t think that’s true, and even if it were I think we should be willing to pay premium to make sure essential systems that support the public good are being administered in democratic ways (e.g. by public agencies that are required to give public reports to elected lawmakers and be subject to citizens’ FOIA requests).

      the business model has existed forever

      A lot of stupid ideas hang on for a really long time. Like, we still have monarchies in the 21st century world.

      Personally, I’m more concerned with the use of Google products in schools. A company that’s sole business is harvesting user data and selling it to advertisers should have no place in schools or children’s products. But they’ve embedded themselves into everything so people just accept it at the cost of privacy

      I 100% agree this is a significant problem too, I just haven’t come across any good articles about it recently

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