The Role of AI in Education—Friend, Not Food

Let me start by saying this will?not?become another anti-AI rant piece. In fact, I have a very specific passion for AI's potential to integrate and improve many, many areas of human life, should we go about its integrations carefully, thoughtfully, and effectively.

Yes, AI is everywhere. We've all watched as it has rapidly (rabidly?) been introduced to every SaaS platform on the market (almost exclusively so, due to its ongoing costs being an inescapable factor right now; the era of the one-time purchase is undoubtedly a thing of the past). E-learning design platforms are no exception to this.

Drawing Your Line

But here’s the thing: AI shouldn’t be designing courses. When you're doing it right, course creation is an art form—an exercise in empathy, context, and human connection. When you want content that resonates, inspires, engages, and... actually sticks... well, AI inherently lacks that intuitive ability to craft something that feels real. Like a teacher talking directly to you about what you want to learn.

One day, it might truly capture the idea of the personal touch. That day, however, is not today, and I would not suspect that we will be seeing it for a few more decades yet. Right now, it can produce a viable course, but it will simply be a parroted amalgamation of what it's been trained on - which is pre-existing, faceless content that carries no real punch to it.

But I thought you said you're not anti-AI...

You busted me - I did say that, didn't I? I've got my annoyances with it just like everybody else, but I also recognize its enormous potential; there is a place for AI in education, in my humble opinion and experience. That role is as a tutor.

AI excels when trained to facilitate a back-and-forth, goal-oriented, objective-focused discourse that is designed to guide learners toward the thing it is that they want to learn. It can be your ultimate study group: endlessly patient, adaptive, and built to keep you moving forward.

As with anything, trust but verify. I call it the Wikipedia principle, which coincidentally holds the best article that covers the phrase 'trust but verify'... so take it with a grain of what appears to be salt but which could benefit from a quick iodine test to see if it turns blue.

But, when you use it properly, the net gain is positive as long as you know what you're getting yourself into, and that you understand what it is that you're dealing with; the nature of the thing.

Why Human-Created Content Has the Edge

When we talk about creating course content, it’s not just about relaying facts and figures. It’s about building a structured experience considering a learner’s emotional, intellectual, and cultural context.

When they're good at what they do, human educators bring this blend of insight and empathy that AI-generated courses simply can’t replicate. A well-crafted course has the power to inspire and connect, offering a cohesive narrative and a uniquely personal touch that makes you feel like you're experiencing something unique and personal.

The Personal Touch

AI, for all its data-driven precision, cannot understand why a specific concept should be presented with care or how to weave in stories or non-existent personal experiences that resonate. Educators know when to slow down, when to challenge, and how to adapt to keep learners engaged, motivated, and entertained.

No matter how much it may resemble the real thing, AI-generated content simply can’t match the depth of human connection that an individual can bring to the medium.

The Tutor AI: Here to Facilitate, Not Dictate

AI as a virtual tutor that facilitates your personalized, back-and-forth learning. Pretty amazing, honestly. It's not out to steal anyone's career, for now, but it can certainly be an incredible tool for any educator to boost their students' experiences substantially.

When you get stuck, it can provide hints, offer alternative explanations to point you in the right direction, steer you away from misconceptions, and break down complex concepts based on your progress and responses. It can be personalized to your age, demographic, writing style, experience, learning, or career history - it can easily be trained to use that and become your virtual bowling alley bumper lanes towards a learning goal.

This is where AI can make learning interactive—engaging you in a real-time dialogue that pushes you closer to your ultimate learning objective.

With AI as a tutor, the learning experience becomes a two-way street. Instead of absorbing information, you’re actively engaged in a bespoke conversation. And because it’s endlessly patient and perpetually evolving, AI tutors can handle the grunt work of repetition and reinforcement, helping learners master the material at any pace that fits their needs.

Using AI Tutors Today

AI tutoring is already entirely accessible in today’s world of services and platform availability, with tools like ChatGPT - which is, in my opinion, currently one of the best places to see this in action after you've trained your ChatGPT account properly - Google’s Socratic app (note ways of using the Socratic method with ChatGPT as well, however), and Duolingo Max making personalized learning support a reality.

These platforms offer hints, guided step-by-step solutions, and tailored feedback, creating a one-on-one experience that mimics actual human-led tutoring (and can sometimes surpass it, depending on your access to quality tutors in your area). Imagine tackling a math problem with an AI tutor: the app won’t just give you the answer—it’ll walk you through it, question by question, reinforcing concepts along the way.

Reflecting on the Future

As a 41-year-old with a daughter in high school, I'm simultaneously thrilled and ridiculously envious about the resources available to her today. I'm hopeful these new technologies will ultimately bring about a better learning environment for everyone as AI becomes more and more accessible and evolved.

However, these tools are just scratching the surface of what AI tutoring could be. In my opinion, I've yet to see a fully-formed implementation of what I think is possible with our technology as it exists right now, much less in 5 years. Workshops, interactive presentations and group discourses, dynamic practice routines and exercises, all 'hosted' by an AI tutor. These things are all possible today. It simply hasn't been put into a commercially viable package just yet.

Future AI tutors could integrate more nuanced adaptability, offering explanations based on individual learning styles and using natural language processing to assess when a student is frustrated, excited, or confident. Imagine an AI tutor that picks up on subtle cues from your engagement—speed, hesitation, or repeated requests for clarification—and adjusts its approach in real time.

There’s also potential for AI to become a team tutor, integrating insights across subjects to help students connect ideas. Much like the idea of a group 'host' tutor, this is something we've yet to see genuinely implemented. AI implementations are primarily one-on-one experiences, but they don't have to be.

The Real Power of Human-AI Collaboration

I see a modern ideal where course content is crafted by educators and instructional designers, infused with all the insight and passion they bring. This content is then supported by AI tutoring, who facilitate the learning experience for each individual, adapting and adjusting to meet the needs of every learner.

AI doesn’t have to control the narrative; it needs to support it.

In this collaborative model, educators create the blueprint, and AI guides learners through it, helping them conquer challenges and absorb critical concepts at their own pace. AI tutors provide real-time feedback to the learner and valuable data to educators, allowing for continuous material refinement based on actual learning patterns.

Conclusion: Use AI to Amplify

AI doesn’t need to take over content creation to have a revolutionary impact on education.

By embracing AI as a supplemental facilitator or amplification of interactivity rather than a creator, we can preserve the irreplaceable human touch that makes learning genuinely memorable, inspiring, and practical.

AI as a tutor amplifies the reach of educators, offering a personalized, responsive support system that guides learners toward their goals.

Education is and should remain... for now at least.... a profoundly human endeavor. AI should empower, support, and enhance the learning experience, not overshadow the artistry of teaching.

With AI as a tutor, we can create a learning experience that’s not just personalized but also profoundly impactful—honoring educators' expertise and learners' curiosity. Having our cake, and... making sure that it's actually cake before we bite into it.

Citations

James Ringrose (2024) - “Dark Side of AI in Learning: What’s the Worst That Can Happen?” Published online at RCPLearning.com. Retrieved from: 'https://www.rcplearning.com/the-dark-side-of-ai-in-learning-whats-the-worst-that-could-happen/' [Online Resource]

Alex Tapscott (2024) - “AI is closer than ever to the human mind.” Published online at NYPost.com. Retrieved from: 'https://nypost.com/2024/07/05/lifestyle/ai-is-closer-than-ever-to-the-human-mind/' [Online Resource]

Agung Rinaldy Malik, Yuni Pratiwi, Kusubakti Andajani, I Wayan Numertayasa, Sri Suharti, Arisa Darwis, Marzuki (2023) - “Exploring Artificial Intelligence in Academic Essay: Higher Education Student's Perspective.” Published online at ScienceDirect.com. Retrieved from: 'https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666374023000717' [Online Resource]

Chien-Chang Lin, Anna Y. Q. Huang, and Owen H. T. Lu (2023) - “Artificial intelligence in intelligent tutoring systems toward sustainable education: a systematic review.” Published online at Springer.com. Retrieved from: 'https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40561-023-00260-y' [Online Resource]

Jinhee Kim, Hyunkyung Lee, and Young Hoan Cho (2022) - “Learning design to support student-AI collaboration: perspectives of leading teachers for AI in education.” Published online at Springer.com. Retrieved from: 'https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10639-021-10831-6' [Online Resource]

Max Roser (2023) - “AI timelines: What do experts in artificial intelligence expect for the future?” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/ai-timelines' [Online Resource]