{"id":447098,"date":"2026-01-30T09:56:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T09:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/447098\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T09:56:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T09:56:39","slug":"the-godfather-of-ai-says-alpha-school-is-one-of-the-best-use-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/447098\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘Godfather of AI’ Says Alpha School Is One of the Best Use Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geoffrey Hinton, the computer scientist widely referred to as the “Godfather of AI<\/a>,” doesn’t feel great about the technology he helped create \u2014 but he sees at least one bright spot.<\/p>\n

During an interview with “BBC Newsnight” that was released last week, Hinton was asked for an example of a good AI use case that makes him feel proud about his role in developing generative AI.<\/p>\n

“Uses in education,” Hinton said, specifically highlighting the Alpha School<\/a> in the US.<\/p>\n

The Alpha School is a network of private institutions that embrace AI-based learning for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The schools use a two-hour learning model<\/a>, where students complete their core subjects in just a couple hours through the use of AI, freeing up their afternoons to work with teachers on life skills and hands-on workshops.<\/p>\n

Hinton said this model, where students can learn with AI instead of classroom lectures and where teachers can focus their time with students on projects and social interaction, was “a much better use of a teacher’s time.”<\/p>\n

“A normal teacher is in broadcast mode in a classroom, where they’re telling the children the answers to questions the children didn’t just wonder about,” Hinton said. “Whereas with an AI tutor, the AI tutor can always be telling you the answers to questions you did just wonder about, and you learn much faster that way.”<\/p>\n

Hinton said the Alpha School was expensive because AI is expensive<\/a>, but said he expects it to become much cheaper as the technology becomes more affordable.<\/p>\n

Tuition at many Alpha School locations, which can be found in California, Florida, and Texas, among other state, can range from $40,000 to $75,000 a year. The network also includes some locations with tuition in the $10,000 to $15,000 range.<\/p>\n

Joe Liemandt, the principal of Alpha School, has said the minimum pay for teachers is $100,000 in order to attract great talent.<\/p>\n

While he was optimistic about the uses of AI in education<\/a>, Hinton told “BBC Newsnight” he didn’t feel the same about AI generally.<\/p>\n

“It makes me very sad that I put my life into developing this stuff and that it’s now extremely dangerous and people aren’t taking the dangers seriously enough,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Geoffrey Hinton, the computer scientist widely referred to as the “Godfather of AI,” doesn’t feel great about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-447098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}