I was that same 5 year old. I do think that if we want AI to force-multiply humanity, we need to start leveraging it for education. I think it's one of the biggest levers we have to be honest
AI aside, I think the biggest thing we could do is stop thinking about education as a profit centre. We’re not multiplying humanity if we’re only doing it for the fraction that can afford it.
Edit: Having more of a look I see you’re making this freemium, which is a good thing.
Europe is tricky because of the EU but yes "poverty in Asia" is as meaningless as "poverty in Africa". At least care enough to know the specifics otherwise there is no point except grandstanding.
Also thanks for engaging with my comments but I said what I said.
Human tutor is definitely the best thing we could do, but it’s not attainable to give every child a human tutor and clearly the current system isn’t working. If you manage to build a good AI tutor, you can unlock more human interaction outside of self-directed learning time
I get where you're coming from. There’s a lot of potential to misuse AI with kids.
What we do believe is that children will be living in a world where this technology will exist, and how it gets used becomes the important question.
We also have to prepare them for that world and how to thrive in it. I would never give my son raw ChatGPT the same way you wouldn’t give a 5 year old access to the raw internet. But that doesn’t mean that the internet can’t be used for learning.
We don’t have all the answers and we can’t respond for all of AI, but we’re a team of parents, teachers, and child psychologists who deeply care about getting this right and unlocking the opportunities for kids. The article goes into the technical depth of how we make it pedagogically aligned, safe, non-slop.
In your article you hit the nail on the head on why this should not be used for developing minds, especially between the ages of 5-7, though i would consider using your product after that.
This age range is a critical period for theory of mind, executive function scaffolding, pragmatic language development, and attentional regulation. This technology directly intersects with these maturing systems.
I applaud your dreams and hopes. I don't share them though, and predict this type of device will destroy countless meaningfull parent-child-teacher relationship.
We started with reading, providing patient coaching as kids learn to read out loud. We are now adding math and in some countries, English as a Second Language.
Students actually aren't as homogenous as you might think. And it's one of the big challenges teachers have with a classroom of 25+. They're forced to teach to the middle, which isn't great for kids that are slightly behind or ahead.
An AI tutor has the advantage to adapt and teach to each child's unique learning path, make sure core concepts are covered on an individual basis before moving on.
Yes! Deeply admire what Sal Khan set out to do. One of the original pioneers of how technology could transform education.
What we learnt from it: a chatbot is not enough to teach a child though. We need more to fully engage them and have the tools and context to truly teach them.
We describe this in the blog post, curious what you think.
Being frank I think its not enough to have a good looking app and have some llm calls
Think about your competition for your market. When I want my child to really excel in learning, I would force them into kumon - so they can skip a grade. If your a student who wants to learn you have khan academy.
And im just not seeing anything that screams-this is better than khan academy and kumon
All i see is an education app with good design
Sorry if it sounds harsh
P.s. if youre on the mission of educating people from developing countries-different story and different problems. Ignore what i put here then
> When I want my child to really excel in learning, I would force them into kumon - so they can skip a grade
Great - so now they're a year younger than all their peers in terms of emotional resilience. I've seen this play out time and time again, and it is disastrous for them and their ability to build relationships.
Pushing children ripe is never a good idea. If they're ahead of their peers, find other outlets for their intelligence. Teach them new skills, involve them in new hobbies. They need time to grow; education is a journey, not a race.
> Students actually aren't as homogenous as you might think. And it's one of the big challenges teachers have with a classroom of 25+
True. It's well known that some % of students do well with individual tutoring. Move faster, understand things better, etc. And another part of students don't do well with that. They need other things. Maybe help from their peers in smaller groups (like 3..8 students), some after-school extra, a fix for problems back home, whatever.
But 5y olds? They need contact with peers, play, attention from humans, run around, build stuff from Lego blocks, touch grass, etc. Learning to read, "3x4=12" math etc isn't hard enough to warrant putting 5y old kids on AI tutors.
Thx much. Is that on mobile or just a really small desktop? I just tried desktop on 80.0.3987.132 and mobile on 80.0.3987.95 and can't reproduce. Can you send a screenshot to catalin@trustle?
Catalin (CTO) here. I very much understand the privacy concern.
To clarify, none of the communication with your coach happens via the Trustle website.
The part that is full of the standard instrumentation and analytics, as you point out, is our onboarding flow. The info you enter here is
- who you are,
- when you can talk,
- and what parenting challenges you face at the broadest level.
Those are the questions required to match you with your coach. The data in those initial three questions flows into Segment and from there into our analytics tools (Amplitude, Google Analytics, conversion tracking for ads, etc.). And while it's all encrypted, etc., you're right to say that it goes to a lot of places internally. We will not ever sell that info, but analyzing it using modern tools internally helps us understand what our users want and how we can do better.
What comes afterwards is end-to-end encrypted conversation with your coach.
Oh, and Trustle is not a health service provider. However, we strive to treat your data with the same level of rigor that a medical service provider would apply; as opposed to the person selling you a vacuum...
> and what parenting challenges you face at the broadest level
> The data in those initial three questions flows into Segment and from there into our analytics tools
This is the worrying part. The fact that you're a parent and the particular broad challenges you face are already somewhat sensitive and useful for advertisers. It's fine if this info stays with you internally. It's not fine if your service providers start using it for their own cross-site marketing purposes.
Between individuals, trust works transitively - you trust them, I trust you, therefore I somewhat trust them too, within the scope of our relationship. Between individuals and companies, in the realities of Internet and modern advertising, it unfortunately does not work that way.
(I don't really expect you do anything about third-party analytics on the frongpage; I just want to voice the concerns.)
> we strive to treat your data with the same level of rigor that a medical service provider would apply
Aim higher. I have a doctor in my family, and you wouldn't believe some of the privacy horror stories I hear happen in hospitals.
>Aim higher. I have a doctor in my family, and you wouldn't believe some of the privacy horror stories I hear happen in hospitals.
Maybe you should just not use the service if you're so against them marketing and tracking user behavior in an extremely standard way. Maybe you should not, in an extremely self-important and arrogant manner, expect everyone else to conform to your view of how the world should be and tell them to "aim higher" if they don't please your every need.
