AI Will NOT Replace Teachers

Because AI can’t do what teachers do!

Forgive this teacher for taking a very skeptical view of AI. For thirty-six years I attended a professional development in August at which I received a very optimistic presentation on “the Next Great Thing in Education!” With a few notable exceptions the NGTE proved indeed useful, but not once in four decades did it come close to matching the hype. When I hear and read the claims of the AI acolytes – which we must understand includes the oligarchs – in the immortal words of Yogi it’s déja-vu all over again. Naturally I never expect anyone to take my skepticism seriously – who listens to a teacher?

Benjamin Riley, author of Cognitive Resonance, is not a teacher. We should all listen to him. In his latest post, Automata & Paradox, he introduced me to mimetic desire, the definition of which immediately resonated:

… when basic needs are met, our desires increasingly become shaped by wanting what others cannot have.

Coming from a background in economics, he now studies how we think and what that means for education. If you have not read him, you need to! I only discovered him after retiring and virtually every time, something he says elicits a ‘damn! Why didn’t somebody tell me this when I was teaching!’

The gist of his latest post addresses the history of commodifying goods, which of course has now expanded to services, and how that applies to AI. The AI moguls have said it is their intention to commodify education, and if you doubt they are proceeding apace - you’re honestly not paying attention. Mimetic desire is the natural evolution of commodification. If everybody can have it, why should I want it? Whatever AI provides for education, everybody’s gonna have it! Interestingly that means regardless of whether AI is the truly remarkable advance it seems or another dot-com bust, the result for education will remain the same; read Riley to understand. The repercussions of that are what we need to look at.

Simply put, what AI is about to do is put a helluva lot of workers out of a job: AI shows up on time (barring technical glitches); AI doesn’t take parental leave; AI doesn’t need health insurance. If it is thought possible to replace a job with AI - acolytes always think it’s possible – it will be tried. There is no doubt a lot of jobs are well-suited for this ‘refinement’, especially those currently being filled by graduates of our deeply flawed public education who cannot write, spell or do basic math; three things AI is exceptional at.

What AI cannot do is interact on a personal level. That ability will become the golden key that unlocks opportunity. As Riley describes it:

Demand for services will shift to demand for better human relationships, creating what he calls the relational sector. In such a world, “the human being is not just an input into the production process. Their judgment, attention, memory, warmth, or presence is an integral part of the value.”

All of my teaching cohorts and I can tell you this defines teaching. The tragedy of the teacher shortage is the number of incredible people whose obvious talent is being snatched up in the ‘real’ world as they abandon a dream.

Despite the claims that public education is destroyed, what the patriarch oligarchs have not – cannot – understand is the force exerted by all those moms. In the wild not messing with a young animal is an accepted truth. While obvious for bears, experience has shown me that a mama rabbit can prove to be a formidable opponent. What the oligarchs have accomplished, thank God, is the destruction of our public education system: A system in the process of dismemberment since Reagan. The system was developed to provide workers for industry as technology made work less physical and more complicated. Now the production of robotic workers to fill industrial jobs is as obsolete as the jobs themselves.

The entire purpose for which our public education system was created will soon be gone. Teachers have been watching this happen for decades and have done what teachers do, adapt. The politicians have continued strewing stumbling blocks and stealing money, as politicians do. As the money gets diverted we are in for a real free-for-all as mimetic desire takes hold and the politicians actually have to face some very angry mamas. What all will want and fewer will be provided is some personal interaction, since that is precisely what AI cannot provide.

A percentage of the ‘schools’ being produced by voucher mania have latched on to mimetic desire and specialize in personal relationships; with AI to handle the boring details of learning math, science and history – which the unbiased research shows AI does very poorly. In a sense it will be fitting for the angry mamas of voucher schools to be empathizing with the angry mamas of public schools ‘saved’ by replacing teachers with AI. What both will realize is their kids can’t read, write, spell; or most importantly – think!

It is becoming increasingly clear the methods we use to teach are not just obsolete, they are counterproductive. In the madness called ‘accountability’ we have made schools far less effective and reduced the curriculum to irrelevance. The only reason this has not been more evident to the politicians – and many parents – is teachers have been fighting it tooth and nail and refusing to abandon the kids. Until some genius policymaker figured out if you just defund the system it will fall apart on its own. Stealing the insufficient funds from public schools to spend in ‘schools’ that specialize in expensive hobbies and teaching religious dogma has finally convinced many teachers that it is time to get a real job and take care of the family, not to mention themselves. Public education, as it was initially created, is withering as the self-fulfilling prophecy that teachers are just robots easily replaced by AI becomes reality when teachers leave, and the only ones left are the truly incompetent.

The methodology of the ‘death of public education’ is unknown at this early time but a guarantee is it won’t be quick or easy, and whatever we call its replacement substantially more expensive. Whatever replaces the relics we currently have, at the center will be the teachers. Why? Because they are the only ones that can offer personal interaction while actually teaching the curriculum the students need. Not to mention scarcity of supply combined with high demand WILL raise the salaries of those who choose to give up the two to three times salary that real world pays compared to current teacher salaries. The curriculum will become both broader and more specialized as the jobs AI is going to make needed and desirable move away from knowledge and facts and toward people skills and services, those that require the provider to actually think and communicate those thoughts, which AI cannot do now and will never do as well as a human.

The most important thing I did in my math classes was not teaching Algebra and Trigonometry, but how to learn – to take concepts and manipulate them with short-term memory, eventually integrating them into long-term memory. That lesson cannot be evaluated on a standardized test, but every good teacher has it as an integral part of their teaching. While the politicians defund and destroy the system, the teachers will migrate to the schools that allow – yea even encourage and support – giving students this kind of personal attention. Why will these schools rise? Angry mamas! My entire working career has involved kids and the salient fact learned is angry mamas must be faced with especial care and – yes – trepidation. I only thought the mama rabbit was scary!

The beginning of this transition will be when the voters demand that their taxes be spent on the local school, under the control of the local school board, rather than the fly-by-night grifters who are springing up with voucher schools, grabbing as much cash as possible, and disappearing. The only reason politicians have control currently is they hold the purse strings. As school boards realize the politicians have removed the money, the motivation to follow the inane rules and requirements (standardized testing at the top of that list) goes with it. This grass roots rebellion will be fueled by the most powerful group known to humanity – ANGRY MOMS!

The current mess that poses as the USA will change for the simple reason that Americans – to include the voters – don’t like being robbed: That is precisely what politicians in general and the GOP in particular are doing – robbing the taxpayer. Americans have always been remarkably forgiving of the ‘peccadillos’ and the lying of their politicians; but history shows that when the politicians overstep the people get pissed – and a more unforgiving group you don’t want to meet. I lived through the civil rights battle and the Vietnam War mess, seeing firsthand the conviction, energy and persistence generated when you know you’re right and the government is full of shit.

You may agree or you may disagree with the scenario described; an American tradition. What is fact – regardless of your opinion – is AI is going to change the workforce; indeed, AI is going to change our concept of what ‘work’ actually means. The fatal flaw of MAGA is the last A: Again. Throughout history those going back have failed, because the world and the people inhabiting it are constantly changing and the idea of returning to anything is purest fantasy. While you may not embrace change – most don’t – you WILL adapt; you must. Public education, or at least the public education perceived and refined over the last six decades, is dead and the teachers say good riddance.

Personally, this is the classic good-news/bad-news paradox. Good news: Teachers will finally start being recognized and even paid for what they can do – because of mimetic desire. Bad news: It is very doubtful I will live to see it. My only hope: The words I write will help influence our adaptation to the new world of AI!

Automata & Paradox