Transcript of Texas Alpha School teaches high school students with AI

There's a high school in Austin, Texas, where AI wanes supreme.

So you've been learning from AI, and now you're building your own AI?

Yes. Textbooks are so last century. Let us embrace AI and the new way of learning.

That is the premise of this radical approach to education at Alpha Schools. Here, not only is the teaching of core subjects left entirely to AI. I'm El, your personal dating coach. Even passion projects about young love are infused with artificial intelligence.

I have an app. Okay. Answers any question about teen dating. I want to ask my crush out to prom in front of all of her friends. Is that a good idea? It really depends on her personality.

So you've created a data set using ChatGPT and your own TikTok?

Yes, and my TikTok, combining the two to create this app.

The AI programs they use to teach core curriculum are so personalized, they even police procrastination.

It'll It'll track my screen and it'll say, Oh, hey, she's not focused on her lessons right now.

So the app is a textbook, a teacher, a quiz, and like a video game. Exactly.

As for supervision, adults in the classroom are called guides, not teachers, and are supposed to focus only on motivating students, and previous teaching experience is not required.

Maybe I'm wondering how to reach out to manufacturers, things that kids maybe aren't able to perfectly do. We still have an adult that's there to mentor us and to guide us.

Are you comfortable having guides in the classroom that don't necessarily know the core curriculum that may be on the screens in front of those kids?

We have the ability in this day and age to get whatever information or knowledge right at our fingertips. It's okay that our guides aren't experts in physics or math. They are experts in their students.

The That AI core curriculum is done for just two hours a day. After a morning of machine learning, students work on life skills, in-person collaboration, and real-world projects.

I'm building an AI-based health coach that uses your genetics to create personalized fitness and nutrition plans.

I'm making my first short film. That way I can make my own film studio.

I'm creating an AR board game. So when you put your phone over it, it'll pop up on your phone.

And you're able to build that here? Yeah. Are you at all I'm worried that when you go off to college, you have a lot of apps here that are helping you learn, but when you don't have those apps, that you're going to be able to translate the knowledge that you have here.

There's no content you can put in front of us that we can't go figure out without a teacher, which is what college is all about.

And while schools of all levels are grappling with how AI fits into the classroom, a recent Harvard study found that students using AI tutors for an Ivy League level physics course tested better than those in traditional classes. Now, Harvard is expanding that pilot program to test machine learning on a bigger scale. And that is welcome news for Alpha founder, Mckenzie Price.

I believe that in 10 years, every student will have the ability to learn everything they need to know via an iPad. We believe children are with us, and it's the guy's job, and our job as schools, to help unlock that potential.

As for the end of this school day, you're going to be quizzed by all your lovely peers. It culminated in this Alpha exercise.

I We have done extensive research about social media addiction.

Where students arm themselves with AI like ChatGPT to rapid fire question one of their peers. What do you think of banning it?

What age groups? Why do I spend 10 hours today on TikTok?

His task to defend his research with no notes. Anybody else? Try to prove mastery of the material better than artificial intelligence. What are the long term effects of social media addiction?

What you're essentially doing with social media is you're gambling your attention for for temporary bouts of dopamine and pleasure.

Poetic that on this day, his research is the danger of social media, also powered by AI.

You should be using social media for productive things, not destructive things.

This is like the existential questions of society.

Yes. We don't want to just be good for our age. We want to be best in the world. And that comes with asking questions that the best in the world are asking, and we're trying to find answers to them.

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