Downloaded Education (RAR!)

[Zor]

Lets say that in the near future someone managed to figure out a way of using cybernetics installing information directly onto a human brain. This can be done safely and with a minimum of risk. This technology is kept under extremely tight control, but is applied to the are of education. It is now possible to reliably give a six year old the equivalent of a PhD in either History, Engineering, Science, Physics, Medicine and so forth in six hours, as well as a reasonable rounding in other fields as well.

How would such a technological development effect society?

Zor

[Eternal_Freedom]

It gives kids a lot more free time. Beyond that, I cannot say. Odds on the concept of adulthood gets massively re-thought as the first generation of PhD-certified teenagers complains about being unable to vote whilst the previous worse-educated generation can. Major social change will follow, with possible chaos.

however, you say there is a minimum of risk. Can you elaborate on this? I suspect very few parents will be willing to let their six year old children undergo a procedure that is not 100% safe.

[Zor]

It gives kids a lot more free time. Beyond that, I cannot say. Odds on the concept of adulthood gets massively re-thought as the first generation of PhD-certified teenagers complains about being unable to vote whilst the previous worse-educated generation can. Major social change will follow, with possible chaos.

however, you say there is a minimum of risk. Can you elaborate on this? I suspect very few parents will be willing to let their six year old children undergo a procedure that is not 100% safe.

Something to the effect of a minor risk of complications, like one in a hundred thousand or so.

Zor

[ryacko]

Pretty much the same risk as receiving a vaccine?

Downloading educations probably cause autism.




How many times can be procedure be conducted on one person?

This will totally destroy the current educational system, and will allow people to conduct surgery. On each other. Various professions requiring degrees, as opposed to experience, will be flooded with educated individuals. The return of apprenticeships will probably occur so that new hires receive experience.
Colleges will close their doors, and become wholly research and sports-dedicated institutions. Not sure what will happen to their endowments.
West Point is probably going to have a different curriculum, to say the least. Military training will likely focus entirely on physical exercises and teamwork in the future (as opposed to including a basic smattering of mechanics and marksmanship).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Pretty much the same risk as receiving a vaccine?

Downloading educations probably cause autism.

This is a important point I think. There wil be people who do not understand the new procedure, or who fear it, or who think "learning is better if you do it the old-fashioned way damnit!" and those people will gather enough public support (because there is no shortage of morons in the world) to spread fear to those who are undecided.

I bet you will even have some people saying "Well, their Physics 1st isn't as good as my Physics 1st, because their's was downloaded and I earnt it!" Expect a lot of recent graduates to be thoroughly pissed off when teenagers take their jobs.

[Ahriman238]

Well, I would have concerns about it being too generic, I don't know that it would completely destroy the educational system. Wouldn't it be exciting if everyone started out with a good high school education, a PhD equivalent in a particular subject, and we just built on that foundation?

WRT the voting thing, a high level of academic knowledge does not equate experience, maturity, or necessarily a deeper understanding, especially if you get the knowledge in an instant rather than working on it over a number of years.

[Batman]

Um-the voting system as currently in use doesn't require any of that either. If you're 18 and not a felon, you get to vote regardless of wether or not you have maturity, experience, and that deeper understanding.

[Ahriman238]

Um-the voting system as currently in use doesn't require any of that either. If you're 18 and not a felon, you get to vote regardless of wether or not you have maturity, experience, and that deeper understanding.

Point. I'm just saying that a six year old with an advanced understanding of physics is probably still going to act, and in most cases think, like a six year old.

[Batman]

And I agree. Though given the mess grownups have made of the world, I sometimes wonder if there's any way letting kids take over could make it worse.
The answer is 'Yes of course, and massively so' because they don't understand logistics and trade and all the things that make the world (barely) function... but Valen if I don't wish that it were as simple as getting rid of the bad people and distributing our surplus to the needy, as a child would envision it.

[Eternal_Freedom]

When I made the point about voting, I did not mean the newly-doctorised six year olds would want to vote. I envision the problem as occurring when those educated kids reach 15 or 16 and start thinking "we're just as educated as those in government, why shouldn't we get a say in things?" There is already a lot of people (around age 16 funnily enough) who want to lower the voting age, having a generation of highly-educated teenagers will not help that situation.

Yes, it might not be reasonable to allow voting based on education, but we're talking about teenagers. They are never the most reasonable bunch of people.

[Batman]

But at least they'd be thoroughly well educated unreasonable people. Can you say the same for the people who actually do the voting out in the real world?

[Eternal_Freedom]

But at least they'd be thoroughly well educated unreasonable people. Can you say the same for the people who actually do the voting out in the real world?

This is part of my point. These young people will in most cases be more educated than those who would be voting and those who are elected. And yet, they aren't allowed to vote.

This will be an issue as soon as you get the first generation of educated kids up to 15/16. After that, well, the issue will be resolved one way or another so it's pretty much a one-off thing. But I think it woudl be a BIG one off thing.

[LaCroix]

The question is - what will you do to keep the kids occupied?

Right now, you have them in school for a good part of the day/week/year, and assignments taking another share. If you give them a high school degree in a day or so, what will they do for the remaining ten-eleven years before they are eligible for work?

Also, work ethics? People form them during school - simply giving a teenager who has done nothing but fooling around/chilling for 16 years and then got an overnight PHD in physics, architecture and engineering doesn't make him someone who you would hire. Or someone who would like to have a job.

Also, these skills don't translate directly into "skill" - even though you might know all steps of a chemical reaction, you might fail at something simple operating the dropper correctly (god forbid if they try doing some high-nitrogen physics right after downloading their degree) - people would need to learn these manual skills that you acquire during the practical parts of your studies.

Also, it would swap around the workplace - skills like law or engineering would become common, and the wages would plummet, while people physically able to do manual tasks like repairing a car or painting a wall would be in demand, for they needed to work to achieve their skill. You can't download muscle memory.

[Ralin]

So, the OP says that you can download knowledge, but can you also download skills too? Because otherwise, I'm not sure it changes as much as you'd think. Having a Ph.D implies a lot more than just memorizing a lot of information. It means learning how to find information and interpret it. How to think and come up with new information. Yeah, it's trite, but it's true. I'm pretty sure I could memorize every part of the human body and not be able to do surgery. Knowing a lot of rote information doesn't mean you can apply it. So I think the answer hinges a lot on that.

[Simon_Jester]

This is a important point I think. There wil be people who do not understand the new procedure, or who fear it, or who think "learning is better if you do it the old-fashioned way damnit!" and those people will gather enough public support (because there is no shortage of morons in the world) to spread fear to those who are undecided.

I bet you will even have some people saying "Well, their Physics 1st isn't as good as my Physics 1st, because their's was downloaded and I earnt it!" Expect a lot of recent graduates to be thoroughly pissed off when teenagers take their jobs.

I think a lot of us are missing something:

Consider a six year old child. Their brain is not fully developed, they have little or no concept of things like delayed gratification. They're easily amused by things (ever seen a bunch of children break down into inexplicable giggling?). They're physically weak and inexperienced with basic household items and necessities. They're far more motivated by who they want to play with than by what they want to accomplish in life. They're prone to emotional outbursts that can only be called "childish." And in less than a decade puberty is going to land on them like a falling anvil.

None of that goes away when you apply the robo-education. A six year old child who gains all the knowledge a certified doctor has is still a six year old child. I wouldn't trust him to prescribe medicines or do anything else that my life could depend on; he might not grasp that he was hurting me until the consequences for me were disastrous. I wouldn't rely on him to do an adult's job or have an adult's sense of responsibility for the job; we already have enough trouble instilling that into teenagers.


Another thought: what stops adults from getting the same kind of automatic education? That might actually change things a lot more, because adults (hopefully) have all the other things that distinguish a grown-up from a child, and which explain why we trust adults to do important things but not children.

I'd trust a thirty year old woman who decided to change careers and become a doctor, a lot more than I'd trust a nine year old girl who did the same.

[Me2005]

Another thought: what stops adults from getting the same kind of automatic education?

I'm going to assume that the procedure only works safely and reliably on ~six-year-olds. While we're asking questions about the premise, is the limit one PhD per person as well (with general rounding), or can you cram as much information as you'd like into a mind?

In any event, I think the best use of existing facilities (though not necessarily existing faculty) would be to gear up for real-life and employment. Instead of teaching 8th graders Geometry and History, we'd let them operate on test-dummies/animals/etc., have them work in supervised shops for low-or no cost (gotta pay for the brain-imprinting somehow), teach them how to socialize properly, how to use money properly, and put them through P.E.. Basically all of the vocational, art, home economics, and social classes that have been cut in many districts would come back. I'd also like to see them going into classes that encourage experiment; like the FIRST robotics competition. Unfortunately, I think that focusing on raising mature and capable children instead of using that time to educate them will quickly lead to the graduates of such a program being more mature than the teachers; again leading to unemployment of those of us who are unenhanced and taking away our only advantage over them.

With that many PhD's, though, who takes out the trash? Who flips my burgers (leaving myself out of the unemployment situation; it'd probably be me otherwise)? Do that many PhD's make the demand go down so much that people move from highly educated positions to take menial jobs?

[Simon_Jester]

Another thought: what stops adults from getting the same kind of automatic education?

I'm going to assume that the procedure only works safely and reliably on ~six-year-olds. While we're asking questions about the premise, is the limit one PhD per person as well (with general rounding), or can you cram as much information as you'd like into a mind?

Zor didn't say anything about it only working on six year olds.

If it does... sucks to be seven years old when the technology is first in widespread use, doesn't it? You have little or no chance of getting a good education the traditional way (because everybody's busy winding down the schools when you show up), and are too old to get it the new way.

In any event, I think the best use of existing facilities (though not necessarily existing faculty) would be to gear up for real-life and employment. Instead of teaching 8th graders Geometry and History, we'd let them operate on test-dummies/animals/etc., have them work in supervised shops for low-or no cost (gotta pay for the brain-imprinting somehow), teach them how to socialize properly, how to use money properly, and put them through P.E.. Basically all of the vocational, art, home economics, and social classes that have been cut in many districts would come back. I'd also like to see them going into classes that encourage experiment; like the FIRST robotics competition. Unfortunately, I think that focusing on raising mature and capable children instead of using that time to educate them will quickly lead to the graduates of such a program being more mature than the teachers.

I would honestly be surprised. Teaching maturity is hard.

With that many PhD's, though, who takes out the trash? Who flips my burgers (leaving myself out of the unemployment situation; it'd probably be me otherwise)? Do that many PhD's make the demand go down so much that people move from highly educated positions to take menial jobs?

If robo-education is very cheap compared to 12-16 years of normal education, then this becomes a serious problem. If not, there will be some kind of constraint on who gets taught what. Not everyone is mentally capable of being a lawyer even if you somehow glue a law library into their brain. You'd want to test children's aptitude in advance, or you'll wind up with a lot of 'credentialed' people who are utterly unfit for the jobs their credentials apply to.

Assuming robo-education can happen at ages higher than six, you might be better off alternating bursts of robo-education with extended periods of 'maturity education,' apprenticeship, and application of their acquired skills. That way you can sort out the people who probably shouldn't do the job before applying the full treatment.

[Connor MacLeod]

I'm wondering what is ensuring this is used *only* for education. Simply saying 'tightly controlled' does not mean it is automatically free of problems. What if you get the digital version of historical revisionism? I recall alot of textbooks coming out of Texas had that sort of problem, and I could see some propoganda-oriented benefits of this technology.

[Zor]

It does not only work for six year olds.

Zor

[Batman]

Well, whom does it work for? As others have said, the same technology being applicable for teenagers leave alone adults could have massive effects on how education works in any society that has it considerably different from the effects it would have if it were only applicable to the very young.

[Zor]

Well, whom does it work for? As others have said, the same technology being applicable for teenagers leave alone adults could have massive effects on how education works in any society that has it considerably different from the effects it would have if it were only applicable to the very young.

Basically anyone that's older than a toddler or younger than about 80.

Zor

[Batman]

Thank you. So are we talking all-or-nothing, or can this knowledge dump be done in steps? Because if it can, there's no reason you can't hold the PhD parts until the recipients are actually grownups. Heck even if it has to be done in one go, waiting until the recipients have at least a smidgen of real life experience as an adult (say, age 30 or so) doesn't seem like it would pose a problem. Have them study the old fashioned way till then.

[Rossum]

One question is how easily a person can verify the information they download in comparison to external knowledge, or how exactly people know what sort of info gets downloaded.

Do the people running to downloading get videos, movies, or text and then download the info into the student or is this some kind of neural programming language?

Because there could be the problem of a misprint, glitch, or active revisionism being in the learning material and it suddenly gets downloaded into a persons head. If the person writing the medical info left a decimal out of place and say made it look like spinach has 10 times the vitamins that it really does (or that vaccines are 10 times as likely to result in disease or whatever) then a whole lot of people taught this info could have it downloaded into them and not realize anything was wrong till months later when they have to test that knowledge.

Historical revisionism or bias in the source material could also seep in, to say nothing of the risks that some religious organization decides to demand children learn about the bible and starts downloading religious textbooks into someones head. How would things like ethics or philosophy work in this technology? Even the occasional little sentence or chapter in sex education material?


At the very least, I'm sure that supplementing a persons downloaded education with apprenticeships or tests would be the way to go. First have them look over the material in the 'normal' way to get used to the info (maybe watch videos to give a very general idea of what the class is about), then they download the information, then do some written and hands-on tests to make sure the information was properly downloaded and accurate (I'm pretty sure with all the different types of brain chemistry people have that some would do better with downloading than others at the very least). Then finally get some apprenticeship or whatever so that someone with actual knowledge in the field can see them apply what they downloaded and correct as necessary.

I'm pretty sure that no matter how well you can download knowledge and potentially even skills into a person, they will need someone to help them apply it in real life... at the very least to show them where the tools are and update them on the details that weren't covered in the downloaded info.

[Chirios]

Well, whom does it work for? As others have said, the same technology being applicable for teenagers leave alone adults could have massive effects on how education works in any society that has it considerably different from the effects it would have if it were only applicable to the very young.

Basically anyone that's older than a toddler or younger than about 80.

Zor

In that case technology changes things, but not as much as much as we think. Basically, people memorise crap, and then the educational system is retooled more towards practical application of what they've memorised; improving the ability of the person to link concepts, etc.

We'll prolly see certain skills being limited to certain ages, i.e. blocking weapons manufacturing for people older than 18.

[Zixinus]

I'd imagine that education would actually remain, merely just not focusing on teaching abstract knowledge, but applying that abstract knowledge. People that e-learned Math will have to go through tests, e-learned physicists would have to set up experiments and document their proof (for example, demonstrate the photoelectric effect and how it shows quantum theory). There would be less lectures and much, much more tests. All of these would be at the appropriate level of the knowledge supposedly learned or absorbed.

But really, schools would be more like school summer-camps or something. Activities and exercises that teach discipline and maturity, or anything else, would be a new focus in education. If manual skills, like learning an instrument, cannot be simply downloaded, they too will have to be practiced and taught.

Furthermore, I guess that the job market is transformed as well. Not having certain abstract experience anymore is no longer a problem. Don't know HR-BULSHIT421 regulations that you'd have to learn on special, super-rare courses in college? No problem, just download the info and you can start right away!

I sincerely wonder whether this would improve or mess with the job market.

I guess it would also act as a hurray for globalization: after all, anyone who can afford the implant (how much does this thing cost anyway?) can learn any abstract profession. I sort-of guess that this is actually a good thing for the most part, as people will more easily become doctors (of course, there should be a system in place to make them good doctors, mind).


Problems I can imagine:

- Oh god, what may happen if religious schools get their hands on these and start having their kids and followers download bullshit-filled ebooks? Then have them be repeated over and over again? Granted, it is unlikely to truly make it more worse, but still... the potential for abuse could likely be high.

- Depth and unquestioning of the information. Say, that someone download XY theory and can actually somewhat apply it. However, what will happen if it turns out that XY theory is proven wrong? Even if there were no errors and misprints or whatever, how rididly will people stick to their easily-downloaded knowledge? Will they be more flexible, due to the ease involved or will the imprint or whatever be so deep that they will have difficulty being critical of the information they have downloaded.

I'm not just talking about mistypes or errors, or even propaganda. I'm talking more systematic and subtle problems, like bias and errors in interpretation. Or just people never bothering questioning the source of XY theory's information. If the data that is downloaded all the same in all the same people, what will ensure that not everyone gains the exact same interpretation and viewpoint? Because this sounds like a very subtle but very real problem, especially in fields that are more theory-heavy.

"we're just as educated as those in government, why shouldn't we get a say in things?

Except that education is not what qualifies them to run government. If they were, we'd have governments run by professors. It is because they are voted into power by skillfully manipulating the masses will of the people.

Voting age is around 18 in many countries as it is. Even if you lowered it to 16, I doubt it will unlikely to truly cause much more insane voting fluctuations then there already are. There might be some short-term problems (like politicians trying to appeal to a new demographic of e-learned 16 year-olds and try to make them loyal voters) but I can't think of anything truly civil-upsetting.