March 26, 2026

Charles Dickens wrote the book Hard Times 174 years ago. In it, he was making fun of people who thought that children were empty vessels to be crammed full of facts. He modeled an education system in which the teachers were to be similar to machinery on a factory floor - we would call them robots today - that would turn out identical and ideal young adults.

Needless to say, this effort was a disaster in the book. Now on top of that idea, imagine if the people building and designing the algorithms of these robot teachers were men like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.

One would think this idea would be ridiculous enough to vanish as quickly as it was proposed, but many on the right have wanted to do away with teachers and teachers' unions for decades. And there are some on the left who are so enamored with technology that they could convince themselves of the wonderful benefits of AI teachers.

I have said it too often this week, but once again, my hope for humanity's future is shrinking every day.