From the point of view of extremely well-moneyed interests, the purpose of these social media platforms is to have a mass-scale means to gain insight into consumer thoughts and preferences, and to then persuade them to alter their behavior (e.g. purchasing decisions, voting, civic action, cultural participation, lifestyle choices). The value of LLMs and similar technologies is to bridge the gap between "collect data" and "deliver effective interventions" as cheaply as possible. If these researchers had done the exact same thing for a marketing agency or a political campaign, they'd never have published a word about what they did or how they did it, and they'd still be on the platform, they'd be getting paid a LOT more money, and their results would be furthering their careers.

So for as ethically troubled as this style of research is, the pearl clutching (especially by Reddit itself) gives me the same frustrated feeling I get when researchers deliver evidence of a viable exploit complete with a working PoC and demonstration of its real-world efficacy, and the vendor threatens them with consequences for finding it.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.space.com%2Fboeing-s...

So I'm not GP, but... teaching in a public school classroom is a VERY different workload from teaching one's own kids, or the kids in some small intentional community. Some examples of hard problems a public schoolteacher has to handle on a regular basis:
  - Kids with severe mental and/or physical disabilities that directly affect learning
  - Kids who are dealing with the realities of poverty and housing/food insecurity
  - Kids without caregivers that are engaged in their education, or even their lives in general
  - Kids who have very limited English skills
  - Kids with severe behavioral issues that can make it hard for the classroom to even function
  - Kids with parents who actively undermine the process while continuing to participate in it

These are all very difficult problems and taken together, they account for a very significant fraction of a public school's overall budget, not to mention the training that a schoolteacher receives prior to certification. If you're in a group of local professionals who are all interested enough in their kids to play an active role in their education, then there's an advance selection filter that greatly reduces the size and frequency of these problems. I would also wager that these parents have a great deal more leverage in dealing with behavioral issues than a schoolteacher does -- they can probably speak a lot more candidly to parents of disruptive kids than a schoolteacher may feel comfortable doing, and have a lot more leeway.

When kids are happy, able, well-nourished, and supported by a family who gives a shit about them and education in general, and when they live in safe environments with good role models, then they practically teach themselves, and in quite a few cases they actually do. Managing a classroom of 30 random kids from your local area every year, while maintaining consistency with the programming across the entire rest of the district and tiptoeing through the political minefield that is a public school is the part that requires a certified saint -- but there's not so many of those, so we make do with certified teachers.

Great point! And yes, that’s true, it was a lot of work to get good context. To your point, for instance, there was a massive high school being built. I went through their entire budget and even compared it to prior years to see how it was evolving, and talked to local folks involved in the district that I knew personally and could have a more candid discussion with. I also looked into other nearby districts and the entire list of accredited private schools in my area. To my local district’s credit, they’re actually in better shape imho than some of the neighboring ones. Still, my takeaway was that the district was not cost-efficient compared to private school. The whole process unfolded over a couple years and culminated in my presenting my daughter with a short list of options for her continued schooling (including remaining in the district, either at her zoned school or one of the option schools we could apply to). Obviously she didn’t need all that, and I didn’t bore her with the budget stuff, but I got really curious.