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Why not just AI kids?

Uh, no.

I’m glad I retired from teaching.

This is not remotely how learning and memory work. What is the matter with these people? Do they want a generation illiterate innumerates? ✋️

"Technologist". What a nonsense word

NPR, it is your duty to call these people huge fucking losers.

I've tried Qwen out of curiosity. The first thing you learn is about asking complete questions. A friend is using AI to help answer the question "did this student complete his or her own homework or likely cheat?" AI has a potential valuable future we are only beginning to realize.

Bad

Ah yes creating the next generation of uneducated drones unable to function without LLM'S, the perfect compliant user base. This is disgusting.

AI avatars may teach our kids but they won’t teach the kids of the upper echelons.

Sounds dystopian.

AI, like most technology can be useful, but only after kids have actually learned how to do things like read, write, compose and work with numbers. That may make it less profitable, but it will keep us from becoming mindless drones.

I forgot to add that the one doctor is “not convinced.”

Why are you platforming this destructive weirdo?

wow what a crazy coincidence that the thing he thinks is the future of teaching just so happens to be the product he's trying to sell.

#ELIMINATEmostAI #REGULATEallAI #HOLDtechbrosAccountable for massive data THEFT!! they need to PAY UP or SHUT DOWN! AI is SLOPPY and was created in an unethical and immoral manner!! AI can be manipulated and, frankly, we cannot trust Big Tech! they are NOT our friends!!

*teckbro

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteri...

This certainly is a prediction.

Platforming anti-intellectual fascism is not a good look NPR

What a dickhead

I’m still waiting for my personal jet pack and a 3 day work week.

Npr is a free ad space now lmao. Useless news

And by the way, synthesia avatars are so dodgey looking, that should have been enough to disqualify this dude from a microphone

good point! what good is literacy when you have a fake teacher who will encourage you to an hero?

Why are you even giving this bullshit oxygen?

When student AI avatars go to schools taught by teacher AI avatars, all the avatars will be geniuses and all the humans will grow up to be dolts.

terrible

Once again I ask: did anyone of these ppl sit w their young children as they tried to “zoom school” during the pandemic? Did anyone notice the educational outcomes, well-tracked and discussed, after that year?

Man…fuck these tech bros.

Modern day snake oil grifters.

This is basically "We're trying to get more of the Megaman Battle Network future to be a reality"

That is exactly what they want. Drones.

Any teacher who’s using AI doesn’t have the right to teach and any kid using AI needs better parents.

Social media, which lacks human interaction, has already proven to be bad for youth. Virtual avatars won't be any better. Children. Need human interaction.

So, in the future it will be radical to read and write. I think we all know what to do here

Reading is woke

Can we please stop normalizing this garbage and pay teachers? You think PragerU is bad, just wait for this matrix ass brainwashing. Death to the clankers.

Aren’t you usually supposed to tag sponsored content?

I bet Victor doesn’t see a future where ALL children learn this way.

That will be a sad and disastrous day.

I see a future where kids ignore AI avatars and go back to scrolling TikTok. Sorry, but teachers also have a physical presence which encourages, guides, and, sometimes, forces kids to pay attention and learn something.

This is not about progress. It’s about control stupid

Embarrassing! Credulous! Waste of time!

I mean, this is hardly an impartial source of information. This is no different than the CEO of Coca-Cola saying "One day, I think people will only drink soda, and the idea of water will seem hopelessly old-fashioned."

fuck no

That would be a stupid future. Stupid in all possible ways.

D.o.g.e., probably.

I see a future where our children are piloted by a team of hyper intelligent ants, like a sort of Ratatouille situation but with, just, like, billions and billions of ants. Where's my puff piece?

lol fuck all the way off

He is a bullshit artist making money of knowing nothing and you are going along with this nonsense. Nothing good is coming from this “revolution”. No increased creativity, no better human development, just slavish submission to technology serving rich people getting richer.

Only one guy has to be happy about that

booo this man and NPR for platforming him! 🍅🍅🍅🍅

Can we stop pretending that dudes like these are anything remotely competent and that the entirety of their jobs is to just say whatever fake shit their raisin brains can steal from mediocre science fiction to balloon stock prices and bait investors????

Wealthy students in private schools.

who is forcing Ai everywhere? how will schools afford Ai services? even if kids type or talk into a prompt, they need to know how to write their ABCs and type their QWERTYs. imagine a class of kids shouting over each other at devices. "class, please take turns talking to your Aivatars"

This sucks

The perfect future for these guys is anything social or meaningful is automated away while the most boring and demeaning work is still done by humans working at "fulfillment centers"

Cool, cool.

Scary….

why are you giving this asshole a platform?

AI culturally flattening. It is gone where there is a body of work to feed it. In the future it’s just going to feeding itself into a death spin.

HI, flesh and blood teacher here... Everything this guy said is wrong. He clearly knows nothing about how the learner learns. That's probably because he has no actual training or knowledge about pedagogy. Platforming someone like this (a CEO of an AI company) can do real harm. You need to do better.

Dehumanization right before our eyes.

Oh goody our society will be even dumber!! I’m not saying AI isn’t a nice tool, but relying on something so inherently flawed is just stupid

Oh joy Fahrenheit 451 becomes reality 😑😑😑😑😑

These dudes always think every job but their own is thoughtless, menial nothing-work that a fancy calculator could do better than a person. I've seen the answers that AI produces for my students for their work. They're not good! And the students don't learn from it at all! Stop!

And I see a future where NPR reporters are replaced with AI voice bots who just read scripts prepared by AI script writers. See how easy that is, to just make stuff up that’s offensive to a whole profession?

Technologist Victor Riparbelli sounds like a dipshit.

Or not.

Tech CEO Tries to Sell Nation on Shitty Product He Hopes will Eventually Replace You(fixed it!)

Learning companions can be a useful tool for content, data and information research, but they have nothing to teach about life, soft skills, social rules and culture. For those who believe the learning experience is about memorising data, think again....

Tech bros hate the liberal arts.

People are being moronic to allow experimentation with kids at scale. The truth is that whatever future Victor might "see", it's a story he's telling himself about what might happen. Victor could be full of it. Maybe we should find out first before affecting a whole generation.

Absolutely not, that is beyond detrimental sounding. Get that whole idea the fuck away from the innocent children. You need a HUMAN to watch and communicate with these growing and learning kids.

Who controls the AI avatars. Am I getting old because I think this is just wrong? Surely reading and writing are essential skills for a healthy thinking independent mind. We are all different.

You shouldn’t even be entertaining this as a question.

These people are anti-humanity

But can the avatar do lock down drills?

It won’t work just like all the other automated teaching nightmares dreamed before it. Children have to form relationships with caring, moral beings to learn effectively.

Short answer: no Long answer: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It is shameful that you would publish this without pushing back on what he is saying.

bsky.app/profile/stat...

Ooh, I really like that quote, thanks. There was a study showing something along these lines that was discussed on WBUR recently too. arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872

Riparbelli is making the common mistake of getting a new tool and throwing out the rest. The more tools you have, the better. Not every problem is a nail. AIs will always need human oversight because they aren't conscious, let alone gods.

Yeah, it’s fucking depressing and terrible for both humanity and the environment. And I say this as someone who likes making AI images, each of which burned down a tree.

AI is stealing our water.

Umm, What jobs do you think you’ll be getting if you can’t read or write????? Wake up. Factory jobs. Low wages. No life. Wake up.

Every tech executive Watching Battlefield: Earth. “This is terrible, let’s do it”

Let’s add “children” to the long list of things TechBros do not understand (along with “how people learn,” “the importance of social interaction,” “the social contract,” “democracy” …). Using AI requires understanding AI which requires critical thinking. Do it the other way around… 😬

THAT sounds like a great idea. Just because some techbro asshole says it doesn't necessarily need to publish it, you know?

We don't have to pretend that this is a normal thing to say, NPR.