The Future of Education is AI Guided
The Future of Education is AI Guided
Experts Guiding AI Will Be the Architects of Hyper-Personalized Education
For over a year now, we've had access to the power of ChatGPT. Its ability to process vast amounts of data and answer virtually any question has revolutionized information access and personal education.
But in that immense breadth of possibility and power lies the challenge.
What do we ask?
And how do we do so in the best way to get the answers that we want?
With great power comes great responsibility
I’m sure we’ve all spent hours asking ChatGPT or other capable large language models (LLMs) various kinds of burning questions like:
What is the meaning of life?
How does a black hole work?
How do I make $1 billion dollars?
What is the best way to ask out someone I like?
Tell me 10 jokes about programming.
Etc. etc… The knowledge and entertainment is endless.
But what if we want to dive deep into the abstract concepts of topics that we don’t fully understand?
Topics that extend beyond the scope and context of a single question or small string of questions. How do we know the best follow-up question or the fifth question after we’ve extended into a topic where we no longer understand the context?
Or what if it is an ephemeral curiosity about ourselves that we can barely articulate within our own mind, let alone ask directed questions about? Topics of personal growth and purpose, inherently human abstractions, that take outside perspective and direction from other humans to effectively unearth.
Also, how do we know the right WAY to ask it?
ChatGPT and its ilk can often be very nuanced in its context and structure.
There’s a reason why the term “prompt engineer” has become a trending topic over the last year: It’s not super obvious how to communicate with these new AI harbingers of informational power and it takes skill and knowledge to get the best answers out of them.
Guided AI
Some of my most significant revelations into how to use ChatGPT have come when I discovered a new ‘prompt template’– a predefined format that guides the AI to provide more accurate and relevant responses. For example, using a template designed for Twitter (X) that includes examples of well written and engaging tweets yields better output when generating new posts.
AI responds very well when you provide detailed context and well formatted examples. This goes for actual text format as well as more abstract structures, like visual artist or writer style (the ethics and legality of which regarding training are a topic for a different discussion).
After discovering a new prompt format and context structure, my prompting productivity increases exponentially. Experimenting with prompting can be time consuming, so I often find new ideas by following people who have a deeper knowledge of the specific topic and context about which I’m researching. Image prompting or prompting for social media ideas for example.
In a sense, I leverage the knowledge of more experienced people within a certain field to help me guide AI toward the results that I want. But the curation of that guidance is still up to me.
Taking the concept beyond a simple prompt or two: guided direction over a series of prompts, with the addition of personalized input, creates even more targeted power to unlock detailed knowledge of a given topic.
Within these concepts I believe lies the next era of advancement in AI: Enhanced knowledge and education through guided interaction and personalized context.
A directed approach of how to use ChatGPT and other AI enhanced tools, within a topic, by niche experts to show us exactly how to get to the destination that we desire.
Curriculum, if you will, created by experts to guide us through hyper personalized coursework toward a higher level of education and achievement.
Hyper-Personalized Education VS The University Machine
On the topic of education, it is worth noting how the current educational systems and frameworks work in our society.
The massive educational system and economy that exists today is largely based on a generalist and theoretical approach. The same coursework is taught for thousands of different students, all of varying personality, skill, and passion for a given topic.
After years of introductory courses, you then “specialize” by choosing a major, which is ultimately coursework within a more targeted topic. Yet that same material is still taught across hundreds and hundreds of students.
Additionally, the coursework and material taught often lags behind the progression of industry significantly. In this era of rapid advancement due to technology, that can have a big impact on the value of a degree as it relates to the job market.
Personally, almost all of the information I learned in my degree (bachelors of computer science) was of a more theoretical nature, which didn’t provide me with the tangible skills immediately needed in the job market. Most of the advantage or edge I’ve gotten since has been from the pursuit of personal curiosity and passion around more niche topics within software and digital media.
Not to downplay the value of theory and diversity in a general college education, but there is definitely a disconnect, especially in today’s hyper competitive job market.
Lastly, the cost of traditional education has inflated to astronomical levels, further crippling recent classes in their ability to compete in our capitalist markets.
Relevant to its value and efficacy, the cost of higher education is becoming difficult to justify. And it’s hard not to consider capitalistic motivations on the side of the universities as part of the issue.
It is important today to get a degree to indicate to employers that you have the the skill and work ethic to contribute to a role, but discussion around the system and its balance of cost vs value is extremely valid.
Niche Creator
With the power and growing capability of AI, I truly believe that we will soon start to see a revolution building in the realm of education.
It has already become commonplace to find specialized education offerings from niche experts across the internet on video sites like YouTube, and other smaller platforms. With the addition of AI, niche educators will be able to offer hyper-personalized curriculum and education tailored to a class of one, delivering an extreme amount of personal value.
Venturing into the realm of AI education myself, I've recently embarked on an exciting project: the development of an educational app that is designed to cater specifically to a unique community.
In collaboration with
, we are developing this AI-driven tool to assist multipotentialites in uncovering and pursuing their diverse skills and passions.I’ve known Jake @
for several years now and he is a wizard in the realm of breaking through personal blocks and unlocking creative potential.We’re calling the app Niche Creator and are hoping to release it sometime in the next few months.
It feels really good to be building something that I’m passionate about and getting to explore the latest in AI technology while doing so. Not to mention doing it with an incredibly inspiring person who shares the same values of authenticity and personal growth.
Much is still in flux, but I’m stoked about the project and will share highlights about my indie hacking journey in the “My Creative Updates” section below as I go.
I’m also attempting to “build in public” a bit on X (Twitter), so if you want to follow for a more detailed account of my technical journey, you can follow me there.
https://twitter.com/michaelmeinhart
The future of AI in education is promising and shows a ton of potential. I’m really excited to be working on something in that space.
~ Michael
Exciting Tech of The Week
The GPT Store
https://openai.com/blog/introducing-the-gpt-store
Several months in the making after drama that included the firing and re-hiring of their CEO, Sam Altman, OpenAI has officially launched their GPT store.
(GPTs [Generative Pre-trained Transformers] are advanced AI models designed to understand and generate human-like text, enabling a wide range of language-based applications)
Similar to Apple’s App Store, the GPT Store is a marketplace where developers (both the code or no-code kind) can offer their custom created GPTs to users.
Within two months of introducing GPTs, over 3 million versions have been developed. The store, currently in an early stage, is open to ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Enterprise users. It features diverse GPTs in categories like DALL·E, writing, and research. Notable GPTs include AllTrails for personalized trail suggestions and Consensus for academic research assistance.
A forthcoming revenue program promises earnings for developers based on GPT user engagement. This initiative represents a significant move in making AI tools widely accessible.
My Creative Updates
Niche Creator App
As I mentioned above, I’ve been hard at work building the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for the Niche Creator app for the last couple months, which has been my main free time focus. I’m using some new technologies like AI via OpenAI’s ChatGPT api as well as a new database backend via Supabase which has been fun to explore.
I believe it is a strength of mine to be working toward creative ideas using technology, so I’m exciting to be working on a project like this.
Cool Client Work
It’s definitely the time for tech in my world as my day time hours are dedicated to a cool app that I’m working on with a great agency here in LA. The project will be part of a Super Bowl campaign coming up that will coincide with a commercial airing around the event. It’s another create / tech project, which I love, and I’m working with extremely talented people. The big game is coming up quick though, so crunch time is upon me 😅
Music
I still have an EP’s worth of songs written for my solo project in the singer-songwriter / rock vein that I am itching to record, produce and finish. Client work and timely opportunity with Niche Creator have me focused mostly on software building for now, but in another month or so I’m looking to attack and finish some music 🤘.