tutatutorthe whole/all the

It's the year 2089. School is a thing of the past. All the children around the whole world are now educated by electronic personal tutors. They learn at their own pace with the guidance of the artificial intelligence embedded in their tutor.

This new situation has many advantages. The tutor (sometimes called the whole tutor, to distinguish it from human tutors of the past) has access to the whole of human knowledge via a permanent link to the internet. Children can ask the question "why?" endlessly of their tutor without ever hearing the answer "Because I said so."

The whole tutor has brought many benefits. It has raised the standard of living across the whole world. Inequality still exists, but the "third world" of 2089 has a higher standard of living than the "first world" did in 2009 (which has moved on to even greater heights).

But the whole tutor has had unintended consequences as well. While some children use their tutors in moderation, others become attached—some say addicted—to them. The wealth and ease of the future has made possible a generation of "eternal students". The natural curiosity of the child begins to feed upon itself. Questions lead to more questions, and the child realizes at a young age how little they truly understand about the universe. The self-assured certainty that used to mark pubescence shattered, the child's curiosity is sustained through the teenage years and beyond.

In some cases, this leads to an obsession to learn all the information on a certain subject. Often, the student succeeds and gains a mastery over the whole field of their study—something thought to be impossible in the early 21st century. But the results are tragic. New information being unavailable to them, the student falls into a deep depression. Their identity tied so tightly to the subject of their obsession, they retreat from reality even more. Most commit suicide. Some are driven crazy.

A lucky few are able to recover. In all such cases, recovery is made only when the student takes on the task of extending the programming for the next generation of whole tutors. The student, with all the knowledge and wisdom of a field in their head, has become a meta tutor of sorts.

jekor
2009-10-22