Are ChatGPT and other AI technologies making learning impossible?
Tags: chatgpt, ai, productivity
Published: 2023-09-04 11:37:06

## It was impossible to learn engineering for my day. Now the same is true for my son.

My dad was born in a small town called _Wota_, in southern parts of Ethiopia. He was able to get some education all the way to high school. But after that it was a difficult ask. So he joined the military not because he was incapable of joining a university and studying engineering. But because that was only for the very few.

## Education was inaccessible.

My dad joined the military because Education was for the few. It was inaccessible. There were only a few universities, two to be exact, in Ethiopia at the time.

Books were very rare too. He can't easily access knowledge on philosophy, religion, history, politics, etc. Neither could he teach himself how to fix and maintain cars, radio or any electronics or mechanical devices. The devices were rare and the knowledge of how they work was a mystery.

Yet, my dad learned a tone from the few books he had access to. He didn't feel his head with garbage, with weird conspiracy beliefs that are constructed with broken reasoning.

He was capable of listening attentively with patience, speaking clearly, articulating his ideas in written form and reading fairly complex topics. All these with two languages. Because of that he had a piece of mind and clarity enough to ponder the big questions in life.

Sadly though, my dad has to go to a civil war to fight with my relatives on my moms side. That happened because of a lack of education.

## Education became accessible, but commoditized

Fast forward a few decades and I was in highschool. In the capital city of Ethiopia. Education is accessible. We had a decent library with fairly good books. We even had a computer lab where we shared a few computers among thousands of students.

Hence, I was able to learn everything my dad did and more. I learned how computers work, at my level, and was able to use the MS DOS.

It was clear progress. Plus, I joined university and studied computer science. I had a good job as a software developer and I didn't go to war like my dad did. I also have the pleasure of taking enough time to ponder the big questions in life. I have read books on them and do a lot of research on them as well. I find myself asking about the meaning of life more than the average person. And that is success for me.

However, now I face a completely different challenge to my dad's generation.

Instead of a few books, I get hold of hundreds, just in my own house. Instead of playing with MsDOS in a shared computer lab. I now have four computers at my house, and that is without counting all the phones, tablets and other devices.

Plus, when you open windows now, it is filled with crappy information and apps that are installed without my will. There is "the news" right at the start, when you open windows 11.

Don't even get me started about the internet. With countless websites, apps and information that are just full of shit. The problem is out of these apps, websites and information only the very few (3% in my assumption) are actually important. The rest is commoditized and engineered to grab my attention.

Hence, I find myself in an automated mood. No thinking, no pondering. That is a clear sign of fuilere for me.

## My son has no hope. He has to be exceptionally smart to find quality education in a pile of crap.

All this was done with humans. Now we are creating bots. The bots are so good at engineering attention acquisition. Hence they will multiply the speed at which this crappy commoditized information is produced. They are so good at keeping us scrolling and just that. No hope of pausing and pondering. No chance of writing, discussing, listening to each other. No hope of learning.

My son would have to be exceptionally smart to survive the AI info dump and find quality content that actually makes him think and question. He has to have a guru level self control to seep through all the bad information and actually learn something useful.

I'm afraid my son will just join the military and go to war just like my dad because knowledge is fast becoming unreachable. Buried in a pile of shit.

How and when would a kid scrolling through an app pause to ask life changing questions. "What are we all doing here? What is the meaning of life? What is my purpose in life? What is life? Who am I? What am I? What do I think? Why do I think so? What is thinking? What is the meaning of all this?". These are questions that made us. That shaped humanity. These are questions that gave me clarity. These are questions that gave me meaning.

Now if you google these, the algorithms give you answers based on their interpretation of who you are. They have decided who you are. How based on the information you consume. But an average kid consumes crappy information because that is what is rightly available for them.

Hence, if I google "What is the meaning of life?" I get answers maybe from wikipedia, Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, Psychologytoday, etc.

If an average teenager Goggles the same question, they get goofy Youtube short videos, movies, and maybe an article from an SEO engineered website. And that is with the assumption they will go googling. I have seen kids searching for staff on Facebook. That is just scarry. 

## A service that would just curate information for kids
This problem has led to the rise of curated content in the format of newsletters. But that is still for adults. For teenagers there is still a gap that must be filled. And that is a service, an app, that could actually filter through this bad information and give them education. 
Education has made a full circle and has become inaccessible. A service that can do that would solve a real problem.