tbh even functional role of a teacher is about to be upend with AI. All I know is I rather my children be taught something that will be useful with assumption that everyone will have access to have a tool like chatgpt at home/work.
However, education is not work. The point of education is not the production of a finished output. The point is to learn. If teachers let students defer their understanding to AI by using ChatGPT to write assignments that means education stops being about the thing they're meant to be learning and starts being a test of prompt engineering. That has it's uses, sure, but you have to be honest about admitting that's what you're arguing in favor of.
Should education be about getting a real, fundamental understanding of a subject, or should it be about prompting an AI to do work in that subject area? I'd suggest the former is a lot more useful and valuable in the long term. If I was spending money on my education that's what I'd want at the end.
If you've ever been around a growing baby, you'll have noticed that learning happens naturally. And if you have kept watching them as they continue on their life journey, you'll have noticed that they are sponges that take in incredible amounts of information. Point being, you don't have to go out of your way to learn.
No, the point of formal education is to develop the ability to separate thought from emotion. That is what humans, being emotional creatures, won't do naturally, but what is necessary to be able to "think big" about the world.
The point of education is a) (before higher levels of education) general education and b) learn skills that help you in your life and work.
For the latter examples being critical thinking or understanding causality. Drawing conclusions that need thinking deeper than the surface. Being patient.
There are ”side products” too, such as emotional growth or learning and coming to accept that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do.
At higher levels of education the point is still to learn but it’s less broad and about more specific subject. You still refine the related skills. The side products also still exist.
I doubt that's possible. Thoughts are emotional after all. Now the senses, that's a different story.
The purpose of an assignment is not to produce a document, it's for the student learn how to synthesize information.
Having an AI produce the document does not provide the student, or the rest of society who needs the student to be good for something, with anything.
In this case it was even stupider. It wasn't a test, it was an informational question about themselves.
What in the ever loving hell is the defense or value in having an AI fabricate a random answer to a question about what you think about something? At least outside of some marketing data gathering context where there is a reason to give false information.
That's a losing battle. The best CAPCHA solvers are now better than humans.
The functional role of a teacher is not going to be upended by AI.
The parent claims that AI will replace human teachers, not education. If we accept that state-funded education is worthwhile now, why would it stop being worthwhile when the teacher just happens to be AI?