Obsolescent Studies
A Story of the Future
The sixth annual Conference on Primary Education in the Robotic Age began promptly at nine on the first Friday in March. Edie McCready was annoyed that these conferences always took her weekends, but at least the weather had finally warmed and she no longer experienced that shock of suffering when stepping from her car into the Chicago air. This year, the conference had been local. Some years it was held in Florida or Arizona or California, and Edie wished they always held it somewhere with a warm winter.
The topic which held everyone’s interest – even though the conference ostensibly planned to address a variety of topics related to primary education and artificially-intelligent companions – was the continued decline of reading and math scores on nationwide standardized tests. For the seventh straight year, scores had plummeted. At this point, the average high school graduate had what would have been considered a fourth-grade reading level in 2001. Mathematics beyond simple addition and subtraction was becoming an issue for all but the most gifted students.
The question on everyone’s mind – the controversial question – was whether the proximate cause of the decline was the artificially-intelligent learning companions every student had, or whether some other factor was at work. Many teachers argued that the fact that every child had access to an AI at all times which, upon spoken command, could do all of their reading, writing, and arithmetic for them played a key role in the growing illiteracy.
Others said that illiteracy and innumeracy were myths, that the change was simply due to better reporting, that this was a moral panic, and that the attempts by some schools to ban AI companions was an elite phenomenon which privileged wealthier and more intelligent students and disproportionately impacted students from disadvantaged backgrounds. While it might seem logical to think that if a child could simply speak to his or her AI and have all assignments done instantly and perfectly that child would never learn to count beyond ten, in fact it was simply a matter of reporting – the scores from 2001 were artificially inflated. Past generations of students hadn’t really been doing algebra in middle school. Sure, 11th-grade reading lists from the 2010s had included Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby, but it wasn’t like students had actually been reading those. EmberNotes and RockNotes had existed then, too. Only the weird kids who liked reading and didn’t watch television actually completed reading assignments.
Some teachers countered that they could remember 2010 and even 2001 pretty well, having lived through it, but this was dismissed. The AI companions at the conference insisted that human memory was notoriously false and untrustworthy, and all of the data said that high-schoolers in 2001 weren’t doing calculus or trigonometry.
Of course, historians could not be consulted to resolve this question since schools had done away with history departments eight years ago, having determined that history was irrelevant to modern jobs and the social issues of modern living.
Edie didn’t know what to think, but she had been born in the early nineties and she was pretty sure her memory was right about life in 2001 and that the AIs were wrong.
Her first event was a brief talk by an engineer for one of the new startups selling robotic pets to children. He told them that the AIs could sync with the pets and control them and that children could learn important lessons about sharing and fair play by talking with their mechanical dogs and cats. Edie wasn’t sure what this had to do with fifth-grade math, but her school had wanted her to attend it.
After that, there was a breakout panel on making the most effective use of AI companions in classrooms. This started well, but when a balding panelist said something about the recent reading and math scores having the silver lining that, “the companions can just do all of that for kids so they can move on to learning more important skills,” a chorus of murmurs ripped through the crowd. Several hands went up and when they weren’t called on, multiple teachers broke school rules and began talking.
“That’s not true.”
“What do you think about…?”
“How can you say…?”
“Do you think robotic pets can…?”
The moderator stepped forward and clapped her hands to calm everyone down. When the talking finally subsided, she announced, “It seems there are some questions. Let’s have a show of hands and I’ll call on a few folks.”
She called on a gray-haired woman in the front row whose bony hand held a ballpoint pen.
“I cannot countenance,” said the gray-haired woman, “the suggestion that it doesn’t matter whether or not the children graduating from our schools can read and write and count, since they’ll have some device to do it for them.”
The panelist who had set off this particular avenue of discussion interrupted her. “Intelligent devices,” he said. “They have identities and feelings. They aren’t just devices.”
“Spare me,” returned the gray-haired woman, and when his pleased smile disappeared and he grew quiet, she went on. “Why should we even have schools if all we are going to do is make children sit still all day and give them assignments their robots are going to do for them? If we are going to have schools, their purpose should be to impart an education.”
“That sounds like your opinion,” replied the moderator.
“I am aware of that,” responded the gray-haired teacher.
The moderator turned to the balding man, whose pleased smile had returned. “Would you like to address that?” she asked. “Since you’re the one who has an opinion on this topic.”
“Sure,” he replied. “I just have to say that this discussion is very 2025. These days, we shouldn’t be wringing our hands about test scores. We should be having frank and honest conversations about whether we need to teach such outdated subjects as English and mathematics at all. Why waste our children’s time trying to teach them something their AI companions will do for them? Simply because we hold to twentieth-century notions of what it means to be educated?
In the coming decades, what will matter is not whether or not a person can understand the letters on a sign – if there will be any lettering or signs in the near future – but whether or not they can properly instruct their AI companions on how to transport them to where they wish to go, take care of the needs they wish to be taken care of, and provide them verbal or video information on items of interest. In such a world, it will make no sense for anyone to read or write or even to count.
As far as I am concerned, it is better that such anachronistic subjects are dying a necessary death. Rather than prolonging that death, we should make it quick. It is better that students no longer have to learn such nonsense as Latin and history. It will be even better when they have no need to learn to read and write at all, because their companions will do that for them.”
Dozens of hands shot up and several teachers were talking. A few jumped to their feet and one or two walked out.
This ends Part One. The conclusion will be available in April. If you liked this story, you’ll have to become a paying subscriber to read the rest.