[pessimizer]

I don't think this is true at all. People failed to learn during covid because the technology is bad. I don't think most people are motivated very much at all by the disappointment of some stranger standing over them. I don't even see it as a desirable aspect of someone's personality that they can be extrinsically motivated by the approval of strangers.

What a teacher provides is a sometimes customized, sometimes flexible schedule, that (sometimes) pays individual attention to what aspects of a concept a student is falling behind at, and (sometimes) comes up with personal recommendations and alternative approaches to break down a student's involuntary resistance to a concept. This might be doable with A.I.. It's not doable with actual teaching anymore because class sizes are too large. A.I. will be cheaper.

And I'm not saying that teaching is so simple that A.I. can do it, I'm saying that teaching is so complicated that it might be that only A.I. is sufficient to largely replace it. I think that what I'm arguing against is that the idea that teachers could be replaced by glowering scarecrows, or fur-covered wire armatures like they once used in experiments to replace animals' mothers.

I don't think that teachers make as good parents as parents do teachers. I don't think most people are mostly motivated by the approval or judgement of their teachers.

What people need is constant, helpful, personalized guidance, and that is very expensive to get from employees.