[AtomBalm]

Now that we have AI tutors that cost <$1/Mtok, why not do on-demand standardized testing for academic credentials and eliminate compulsory (dejure or defacto) education beyond working age. Universities can focus on research, and normal people get off the credentialism treadmill or focus on as-needed training at minimal cost. Need the social environment? Libraries or community centers can lend vacant space for “college” classrooms.

Everyone wins, right? You know, except university administrators and lenders.

[poincaredisk]

Great, let's make the average person even dumber. Or rather: dumb again. Universal education is a big win of the modern times and you want to destroy that for on-demand job training? Mass producing replaceable workers should not be humanity's goal.

[martindbp]

How would it make people dumber? Students provably forgets 90%+ of what they learn, and education is massively inefficient today, which can also provably be improved by virtual tutors (see Bloom's two sigma problem). Your reaction seems knee jerk instead of thinking through this from first principles. Something like this is likely to happen whether you like it or not.

[martindbp]

Exactly. I think the people who oppose this do it for sentimental reasons. Either because they want the prestige of a place like Stanford on their resume, or they enjoyed the social milieu. A social network of similarly ambitious people is also arguably more important than the actual knowledge. The knowledge is already available for free online, and like Bryan Caplan points out: at many universities you can just go and sit in class, but nobody does it because what you actually want is the credentials, not the knowledge.