In education policy circles, there’s a lot of enthusiasmregarding the promise of AI-enabled tutoring. After all, a huge stumbling block for tutoring has been the limited number of affordable, reliable, and skilled tutors. That’s why ubiquitous AI could be such a game-changer.
But there’s reason to fear that the excitement of AI-enabled tutoring will distract us from some of the other, less fantastical possibilities offered by web-enabled mentoring. Look, I want to be clear. I am, and have long been, a believer in the promise of computer-assisted tutoring—especially when an AI tutor knows a student’s vocabulary or can inhabit fictional characters.