Zak Stein - AI Tutor Apocalypse

**Daniel Thorson** (0:05)
Welcome back to Emerge. So in this episode, I'm speaking with Zak Stein, a frequent guest of the show. And this time, we're gonna be exploring artificial intelligence, and in particular, the novel risk of AI tutors, or I should say the novel risk and potential salvation of AI tutors if they're designed correctly. This is a risk vector in the meta crisis that I had really not considered before I talked to Zak about it. And it's very interesting. Zak is an educational philosopher, so he can see these potentials better than perhaps anybody in the world.
And with this whole topic of AI, it's something that I'll be exploring on the show from a number of directions, as I myself try to make sense of the topic. I think Zak is one of the most comprehensive and holistic thinkers about just about every topic. And so I really appreciate his perspective a lot.
And I won't say that I enjoyed this conversation. I think it kind of, as I say at the end, added another brick of anxiety into my body-mind regarding the uncertainty and rapidly transforming transformation that we're seeing play out in the world. And so, you know, be easy with this one. If you're already feeling anxious about AI, you may not want to break open a whole new risk vector, but perhaps, like me, you're a glutton for punishment and want to dive in. And if you do, well, good luck. I hope you have friends to talk to and a practice that can ground you.
Quick update about the show more generally. I will be posting episodes again, sporadically, you know, probably one or two a month, I'm guessing. I have three or four in a queue now that I'll be releasing soon. And I will also be sharing personal updates, deeper cuts, and whatever else I want to share that I don't feel is appropriate for the public to hear. I'll be sharing that on my Patreon page, and so if you want to hear about, you know, why haven't I posted an episode since August, you know, what's been going on in my life, you can, I will be alongside this episode with Zak releasing a 30 minute kind of solo episode, updating you, sharing what it's been like, and inviting you into a deeper connection if you're interested in that. You know, I've been, one of the things I've been doing is really, really diving in deeply to Steve March's work with the Alethea coaching. And that's something that I'll be also exploring in the Patreon community. So if you want to connect around that, perhaps do some demo coaching, because I'm trying to get as much practice as I possibly can.
Go ahead and sign up for the Patreon community.
If you are without resource, but you still want to hear about what it's been like for me, for whatever reason, feel free to reach out, and I will just send you the audio. You can DM me on Twitter, I'm at dthorson, or you can email me at dthorson.gmail.com. That's dthorson at gmail.com.
The last thing I want to mention is, I want to hawk an upcoming retreat that we're doing at the Monastic Academy. That retreat is the famous, well, not really, but the reasonably well-known, and I hope someday to be more famous, Anti-Fragile Heart Retreat. The Anti-Fragile Heart Retreat is one of my favorite things that we do at the Monastic Academy. It is a week of just really pulling out all the stops for deploying a robust ecology of practices. We do circling, we do emotional healing, we do meditation, we do ethical inquiry, we do movement practices, and we weave it all together with frameworks that are really interesting and really helpful. People come and experience just profound transformations during that time in just about every case. So if you're looking to break through some kind of stuckness, or you're looking to make a big change in your life, or perhaps just learn how to feel your feelings deeply and heal old wounds, this is a week that is made for you. And it is a great opportunity, and we still have spots left. I'll include a link in the show description if you'd like to sign up and join us, and it'd be great to see you.
Okay, that's it for now. Enjoy this episode of the Emerge Podcast with Zak Stein.
You know, compared to previous conversations we've had, I feel like with regards to AI, much more like a babe in the woods, you know? Generally, we've covered topics that I feel like, you know, some degree of familiarity with like text or, you know, I have a history of practice that I think lets me engage in a way where I feel confident in terms of where I'm directing the conversation and all that kind of thing. But with AI, you know, I'm trying, I think like many people right now, I'm like trying to learn, orient to this new world that feels like it's just coming real quick, you know? And even at Maple, you know, we took AI quite seriously for a long time. For a long time. And yet it really does feel like something has changed in the cultural atmosphere and in the kind of newosphere, really, like it seems like I have to now reckon in a new way with the reality of this. And it seems like that's true for a lot of people. Yep. And, you know, last time we were together, we talked about a certain dimension of AI, and I thought I'm gonna be covering AI a lot, I think, this kind of season in my podcast. And so I was hoping that, you know, we can get a little bit of just kind of your take and sense of this moment and the risk, and then also the particular dimensions regarding education that we talked about last time.