AI will change learning outcomes for students, but not everyone could be similarly impacted.
Will Depue, a Member of the Technical Staff at OpenAI, has shared some interesting thoughts on the transformative impact of AI on education. His perspective highlights the potential for AI to exacerbate existing disparities in learning outcomes. Depue suggests that while many students may benefit, the most significant impacts could be felt by those at either end of the performance spectrum, creating an even wider gap between high and low achievers.
“I think the world just gets a lot more extreme,” Depue said on the TBPN podcast. “And I think this is just true with AI across the board. I think the bottom percentile students are gonna fall behind.”
But he said that AI will impact top students differently. “And I think the top percentile students are just gonna get extremely overpowered. If I had this tool as a kid, I would just be vastly smarter than I am now.”
Depue then offered a personal anecdote: “Even now today, I just talked to [ChatGPT, presumably] every day. I was, you know, asking it random concepts, learning random things. I went super down, like deep down a bio rabbit hole yesterday and [researched] rare supplements I could take from the internet.” He concluded, “I think is like [an] incredible tool for learning. But yeah, it’s kind of bimodal, right? I think a lot of people are going to get a lot dumber, but I think a lot of people get smarter.”
Depue’s remarks paint a picture of a future where AI tools become integral to learning. While he acknowledges the potential for widespread cognitive enhancement, his focus on the extremes—the “bottom percentile” falling behind and the “top percentile” becoming “overpowered”—raises crucial questions about equitable access and outcomes.
The business world appears to have already caught on to how this is going to play out. Just yesterday, Shopify had said that it required that AI understanding would be the required baseline for all its employees, and it would test them on their AI skills and use in performance reviews. Also, many companies have given away free subscriptions to AI models to their employees to help them get up to speed with the new technology.
But this disparity could need careful maneuvering in educational institutions. Schools will need to grapple with the challenge of bridging the widening gap, perhaps through targeted interventions for struggling students and enriched programs for high achievers. Moreover, ensuring equitable access to AI tools will be paramount. If these powerful technologies are not available to all students, the existing inequalities in education will only be amplified. AI is an incredibly powerful force, but it might need careful deployment in areas like school and educational institutions.