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Building a real-time AI tutor for 5-year-olds

https://www.ello.com/blog/teaching-a-child-in-1000-ms
7•catalinvoss•1h ago

Comments

ilyausorov•1h ago
Really awesome work! I've been trying to do some of this real time back and forth voice coaching myself and it's no easy feat. Congrats on the progress.
28304283409234•41m ago
Please don't. Don't deprive children of the interaction with other human beings. 5 year olds don't need tutors. They need play, touch, sense, feel, run, breath, sky, earth.
eba7keb•35m ago
I’m curious why it has to be an either or? Spending 30 minutes with a tutor doesn’t deprive children of interaction with humans. If we can support a child’s learning (perhaps even more efficiently) doesn’t it give them more time to do that?
LocalH•25m ago
Replacing a human tutor with an AI that will wildly hallucinate is wrong, and will directly contribute to the dumbing down of society that people here often bemoan.

This is the equivalent of "parenting" by putting a kid in front of YouTube Kids for half the day

LocalH•26m ago
Some 5 year olds could use a human tutor. Giving them AI instead is no different than plopping them in front of "Youtube Kids" instead of being a parent.
JimsonYang•37m ago
What is being taught to 5 year olds? And why would an AI tutor be better than an pre-k learning app

Most students are pretty homogeneous in learning at that stage

catalinvoss•12m ago
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.

LocalH•27m ago
Dear God no. Keep kids away from AI, and keep AI away from kids. Kids need more human contact, not less.

The more I think about it, the more I want to ban your entire business model

catalinvoss•24m ago
Hey HN! We've spent the good part of this past year building an AI tutor that teaches kids ages 4-9 reading, math, ESL and more. Getting an AI tutor to effectively teach a child turns out to be a really hard technical challenge, this took getting the underlying architecture right.

Our tutor steers the UX in real-time and makes complex decisions on the fly. Doing both at conversation speed required us to replace the standard tool-use loop. We built our own tutor harness that utilizes a streaming interpreter that executes actions, while an asynchronous planner model reasons ahead of the conversation and makes calls that drive the child's learning. On top of it all, we developed a safety system that checks every turn without it causing an interruption to the activity and conversation flow.

Effective teaching isn't just about answering a child's question quickly, rather making the right move at the right moment. AI is also going to be an integral part shaping how this generation of kids learn to read and think, tackling this responsibly means getting the design right.

Happy to answer questions and curious what you all think, critical feedback included, we've been working on this problem for a long time and love to hear from the HN community.

LocalH•23m ago
Is your hallucination rate 0.00000000? If not, then it doesn't deserve to be used.

Modern AI needs to go away. You're not helping by making something that will be grossly misused once it's out of your hands.

AlexeyBrin•18m ago
This sounds like a terrible idea. 5 years olds need human interaction with a human tutor or with other children.
JungleGymSam•18m ago
stop. children need humans not AI. i hate this.
ErroneousBosh•11m ago
It's bad enough that schools give 5-year-olds tablets to do their maths work on.

Let's not expose them to AI brainrot now too.

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