The terms “the Uberfication of Education” or “Uber for Tutors” are currently on top of my list when it comes to edtech buzzword bingo. While it surely sounds cool the problem is that most people simply don’t understand what a complete Uberfication would look like.
When people talk about Uberfication today they naturally have the current Uber service in mind: a cheap, freelance driven alternative to the yellow cab. What they don’t seem to notice is that today’s Uber service is just a MVP (minimum viable product), an early version of a service that will transform dramatically in the years to come.
Since its launch in 2009 Uber has raised nearly $9 billion in capital. $9 billion for an app that connects people who are looking for a ride with freelance drivers and their cars. Neither does Uber own the car fleet nor does it employ its drivers. Yet, the company raised nearly three times more money than Facebook ($2.4b), LinkedIn ($100m) and Twitter ($1.1b) combined, all of which have gone public. So what does Uber need all the money for if it does not need to invest in cars or salaries and only fulfils minimum insurance requirements?
Uberfication is about Phasing out Humans
The cash pile will be used to get the company to the next level which will be centered around self driving cars. Either Uber will use the cash to invest in its own fleet or to partner with Google, Apple or other manufacturers of self driving cars. Guess what will happen to Uber drivers?! Uberfication is about phasing out humans.
Training the Tutor AI
Coming back to education we can now predict what an Uberfication will eventually entail for teachers and tutors. In the MVP they are still needed to answer student questions on-demand at ever decreasing pay. A couple of years down the road those tutors will be replaced by AI, and AI tutors are probably training to take over their jobs today.
I am pretty sure that edtech companies in the on-demand space are constantly tracking tutoring sessions and mine them for data. It’s the same principle Google used to make its services smarter by letting users type in words or street numbers in the captcha system. Or what Duolingo did with its translation service.
Students and tutors today are surely producing the data for a tutoring AI today by asking and answering questions through the on-demand tutoring platforms. With hundreds or even thousands of sessions per day this is a lot of valuable data, showing exactly which topics are the most common and what different solutions tutors provide when it comes to explaining a problem.
Based on these data sets a tutor AI could come very close to the mind and approach of a human tutor: You did not get it, let me explain it differently to you.
Therefore, if you are talking about the Uberfication of Education you are talking about Education without teachers.
Picture by Thomas Hawk via Flickr