Posted on 09/28/2026 12:02:18 PM PDT by SmokingJoe
Researchers proved AI has deleted every reason universities exist.
Harvard University ran a controlled experiment pitting a custom AI against their own top-tier classrooms.
And the results are going to collapse the higher education bubble.
They took 194 undergraduates and split them up.
One group learned physics in one of Harvard’s best hands-on, active-learning physical classrooms. Group work. Instructor support. The premium university experience.
The other group went home and learned the exact same material with an AI tutor.
The AI didn't just win. It embarrassed the institution.
Students using the AI learned more than twice as much as the students in the elite Harvard classroom.
They scored 30% higher on the final assessment.
And they did it in less time.
Let that sink in.
A piece of software sitting on a laptop outperformed a world-class faculty in one of the most elite learning environments on Earth.
Universities have always justified their exorbitant tuition with two things: access to elite knowledge and the physical classroom experience.
This study just proved both of those moats are gone.
When software can teach you complex physics twice as well as a $60,000-a-year institution, the math of higher education breaks permanently.
The AI didn't just give the students answers. It used strict pedagogical guardrails. It guided. It questioned. It forced the students to do the cognitive work.
It offered perfect, one-to-one tutoring, personalized to the exact moment a student misunderstood a concept.
That level of attention is mathematically impossible to scale in a physical lecture hall.
For a thousand years, the university was the only place to get a premium education.
Now, it’s the bottleneck.
If AI can double your learning speed for a fraction of the cost, what exactly are students taking on decades of debt to pay for?
I'm deadly serious ... your failure to understand does not surprise me.
It's a darn sight closer to the real world than some bloody "AI" simulation ...
Your failure to grasp that fact does not surprise me.
“Failure to understand” what?
Empty space?
You must have taken a college course in reasoning.
“I don’t see how AI could run a lab”
Labs were where real Scientists were created.
I suppose you fancy that comment to be an insult of some sort.
Yes - using it to DO the homework, that is intended to be the critical part of the learning process, is critically negative.
There are instances of AI solving long held problems. While it is ‘just’ brute force, it still achieves - it’s almost like the “infinite monkeys typing on a keyboard, ultimately producing the world’s greatest written works”. Exploring the 99.999% wrong paths only to stumble on something that works, with the ability to check its own work. While it’s ‘only’ using existing knowledge, it can create derivative work.
The education system is broken across the board. The idea of “homework” in the age of AI is the problem. I’d rather students be required to interact with an AI as a teacher, requiring them to interact with the content the entire time - like a personal tutor, able to move at a personal speed, unhindered by other students. This would eliminate the “homework done by AI” problem. We’re stuck in a model that requires sharing a teacher across 30 students, where issuing homework is the only feasible approach.
Hummmmm? AI?
“A college lab is not the real world.”
Beg to differ.... I’d much rather have students diagnosing/repairing actual vehicles with real world problems than some hypothetical from someone’s brainpan.
Feasible but hard to isolate as regards homework, vs just asking a AI the answers. And who programs that AI model? There are not all the same. Ask it about negative effects of homosexual relations for instance, vs. negative effects of smoking.
. We’re stuck in a model that requires sharing a teacher across 30 students,
AI says
The average class size in American public K-12 schools is roughly 19.1 students in self-contained elementary school classrooms and 21.0 to 26.8 students in secondary or departmentalized classes, according to federal data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
ok...does that substantively change anything about my post?
That input of research does not, and thanks for yours (this is a forum), yet clarifies yet the number of distributors is a problem, and the lack effective discipline. As to that is this issue:
The average digital attention span on a single screen or task has dropped from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to roughly 47 to 40 seconds.
By the grace of God, I work on bikes for free (parts at approx. cost) on the sidewalk in a "low income" city in MA, and yesterday, once again I tried to teach a teen how to R+R something (bottom bracket bearings), getting his attention before I looked back to what I was doing/showing him, but when I looked up he was back looking at his phone, sitting on a bench. Maybe I should make a rule of no repairs unless they watch.
For any society to continue then the knowledge, wisdom and skills of the parental generation needs to be passed on to their children, but today, while knowledge is easy to obtain, the ease and lure entertainment eclipses instruction, esp. in physical work skills.
My father would put a wrench or screwdriver in my hand and talk me through it. He would alternate between "Are you stupid?" and "Are you blind?" whenever I screwed up, but at the end of the build/repair (bikes, toilets, lawnmowers, tractors, cars...) I could do the work. Watching and doing are not the same.
“I’d rather students be required to interact with an AI as a teacher, requiring them to interact with the content the entire time - like a personal tutor, able to move at a personal speed, unhindered by other students.”
This is a good idea—and is starting to get implemented in a variety of schools.
The verdict:
Students love it—and the teachers are freaking out.
It is a radical role change for teachers—and long term suggests many less teachers are needed.
AI can do that.
I’d agree that it should require a (verbal) contract - “I fix this so long as you watch, put the phone away”.
Young kids don’t realize how valuable it is for somebody to want to teach them something.
I’ll say “thank you” on their behalf :)
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