AI Study Buddy

AI will change the world! Or AI is a bubble that will ruin the global economy! Or AI is a new tool to be embraced in the evolution of humanity! Or AI will gut what is left of the individuals creative experience!

Any or all of that could be true. It is a question that no one has the answer to. I am neither having a economic existential crisis, nor selling off my worldly possessions to prepare for the AI utopia. What I am doing is attempting to keep up with the advances and what are practical use cases.

Hard Fork is a great resource for that, among many others. In a recent episode focused on AI in education, I was inspired to test out a new approach to studying with my middle schooler.

The Approach

I created a new project in ChatGPT^ and provided it with context for his classes and my aim to support him studying for quizzes and test. When he has an upcoming assessment, we start a new chat in the project, and load up any relevant materials E.g., study guides, worksheets, etc. Then we use the study mode introduced in July to prep. This is really the power of a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) on display. I don’t need the AI to hallucinate facts about the Revolutionary War. Instead I am handing it source material and telling it to only operate in that specific space.

What works

We are leaping ahead into the material. He is empowered to more proactively review with mnemonics and chunking. We can jump into material we’ve forgotten or are unfamiliar with and help him right away. Prior to this approach, studying was painful for both parties. He would stare at a printed worksheet and I would have to basically micro study all of it first before I could ask him effective questions and assess his readiness.

What doesn’t

It is a lot of typing for a kid whose foundation on a keyboard is mostly WASD for gaming. The potential alternative is voice mode, but he sort of froze up when we tried out just talking to the to future bot. So the going is slow with typing, but that isn’t a bad thing. Probably more of a self fulfilling prophecy for him to get better at it.

Conclusion

We’ve seen an immediate lift since we started. Studying is less painful and his grades were already good, but also improved. This could be the slippery slope to what many people associate, AI + Education = Cheating, but being introduced to that concept feels inevitable. If we can be the “cool” parents and introduce it responsibly, hopefully he views it as a tool. Not a shortcut that undermines his development as he grows up with this technology.

^ I’ve been paying for ChatGPT Plus for a year now and using it regularly, but I don’t think anything I am describing here requires. Except voice mode, which he didn’t care for.