In my last post I included teachers as a career that could be automated. I still believe it can, but I think there's less pressure on it to be automated than I initially assumed.
The value of many jobs (to an employer) can be simplified as Productivity / Time
The SWE who contributes X amount of useful code in an hour is likely a better employee than the SWE who contributes the same amount of useful code in 3 hours. This has driven much progress over the decades. Why hire humans to do a job if we can make machines that can do it faster and cheaper? If we make our products faster and cheaper, we can sell more!
But teaching, as a career, doesn't really derive its value in that way. It kinda can't.
Teaching has set hours
I always thought it was annoying when I had to wake up at 6 in the morning to get to first period... but there are valid (ish) reasons for these early hours. Parents want to send their kids off to class before they get to their 9 to 5. And where's the time for extracurriculars if we start late in the day? Kids are expected to be at school from (roughly) 8 AM to 2:30 PM. Longer for kids who participate in those extracurricular activities. It wouldn't make sense for us to have an AI that can teach at a school 24/7 because there isn't really any demand for this. Weekends and breaks lower the demand even further.
Teaching has set pacing, too
It'd be so simple if you could cram all of your learning into an afternoon. I would've loved learning everything for the week on a Monday afternoon so I could get back to doing... whatever I was doing as an eight-year-old.
Unfortunately, learning isn't so simple.
I'm sure a lot of you have tried cramming the night before an exam. I've tried it. More times than I should have. It sucks. And you don't get a good score.
There's really just no reason for a teacher to teach as fast as possible. It'd be doing kids a disservice! I know I hate when a professor lectures too quickly and I'm (hopefully) more cognitively developed than an elementary schooler.
So... are teachers exempt from what's coming?
No, probably not.
I still stand by the belief that all work will be automated. But I think it's important to consider automation timelines. The order and magnitudes of automation will impact our economy and culture. I think the automation of teaching will significantly change our culture.
Will it be a good thing?
It's so hard to say.
On one hand, if AI is a vastly better teacher, it'd probably be immoral not to have one teach your kids. We already factor in how good a school district is when we buy our houses. An automated teacher would be infinitely patient and overwhelmingly helpful. Lovely!
On the other hand, the human element is so important. We spend so much time around teachers. I often think about the teachers I had. The ones who were funny, the ones who gave out the best assignments, the ones who cared about their students. It was fun learning who my teachers were as people and how that influenced the way they taught. There are some people who consider this a downside of teachers; I think those people are mentally still in high school.
I'm concerned, too, about the influence the automated teachers will have on children. An effective teacher would be an effective propagandist. Whoever owns our teachers will have a lot of power.
Thinking (and writing) about these things is always a little upsetting. The future looks more and more bizarre every day.