I don't think WikiReader was every "widely distributed". As far as I remember from watching Techmoan's video on the topic, it was a consumer product with no market.

An alternative data point would be https://www.edutopia.org/blog/self-organized-learning-sugata... - the hole in the wall computer that showed giving access to the internet to poor children did have a dramatic effect.

Thank you for pointing this out. Most Hacker News comments are so wrapped up in their ideology--as evidenced by the response which reads your assertion as derisive.

Your derision doesn't include the fact that there is no "the solution" for unequal distribution of privilege.

It's not clear that it "didn't work" either. Does that mean no one benefited from it anywhere ever?

Google assistant or similar limited-AIs are a much more likely future. My kids already have (silly) conversations with google-assistant all the time.

An obvious extension would be google-ai-tutor. Inspired by _Diamond Age_.

I had one, until I accidentally killed it - it was a great gadget. The $99 price point is what killed it, though.