👩‍🏫 America needs better, smarter teachers. GenAI can help.

Chatbots seem to reduce inequality through the upskilling of less-skilled workers. Let's hope they can work their magic in the classroom.

Quote of the Issue

"We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt." - “Cooper” in Interstellar

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Some self promotion: I have a book coming out on October 3. The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised is currently available for pre-order pretty much everywhere. Some folks are already saying nice things about it:

Anyway, I’m very excited about it! Let’s gooooo! 🆙↗⤴📈

• Amazon

• Barnes & Noble

• Books-A-Million

• Target

• Walmart

• Bookshop

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The Essay

👩‍🏫 America needs better, smarter teachers. GenAI can help.

Among the many (too many, really) concerns being discussed regarding the rise of generative AI, especially large language models: The technology might prove such a powerful force of automation that it will massively supercharge inequality by driving down wages for most people. That, even as it amplfies the economic power of those who own the AI models and applications. The ultimate win of Capital over Labor.

Yet even as such speculation continues, early studies of GenAI when actually used suggest it can be a powerful force to reduce inequality. Two examples:

• In “Experimental Evidence on the Productivity Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence,” Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang, two economics graduate students at MIT, looked at how ChatGPT affects productivity for professionals doing job-related writing tasks. In an online experiment, they tasked 453 college-educated professionals do realistic writing assignments that they were paid to complete. Half of the pros were randomly given access to ChatGPT while they worked. Result: A big productivity boost for the ChatGPTers. With the chatbot, people finished their writing 40 percent faster on average. The quality of the writing also improved by 18 percent. What’s more, “ChatGPT substantially compresses the productivity distribution, reducing inequality.” Participants had to complete two tasks, and the people who didn’t do so well on the first task did much better on the second when using ChatGPT. This means that ChatGPT helped reduce the performance gap between those who initially did well and those who didn't.

• In a study from last April, “Generative AI at Work,” economists Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li, and Lindsey R. Raymond looked at Fortune 500 company (specializing in business software for small and medium U.S. firms) that had started using an AI system with 5,000 chat-based tech support agents in the Philippines. The AI combined ChatGPT and other algorithms tweaked for customer service. Not only did the productivity of call and contact center workers improve by 14 percent when using an AI system, but the biggest gains, 30 percent, were by low-skilled workers. “Generative AI seems to be able to decrease inequality in productivity, helping lower-skilled workers significantly but with little effect on high-skilled workers,” Li commented. “Without access to an AI tool, less-experienced workers would slowly get better at their jobs. Now they can get better faster.”

In both cases, GenAI reduced inequality through the upskilling of less-skilled workers. It’s hard not to read those conclusion and get excited about the potential to improve American education through improved teacher quality at the lower end.