VIPKID Vault
VIPKID Dino won’t stay a baby baby for long….
This ship is sinking RIGHT NOW.
Disruptive
Interface
Now
Online
My personal email: VIPKIDwork@gmail.com
to find out more.
VIPKID, the world’s largest online English education company, announced August 23rd 2017 that it has raised $200 million in series D financing, the largest round of funding ever raised in the sector.
Tencent announced a strategic partnership with VIPKID in the areas of narrow artificial intelligence and online education, for the development and training of “Dino,” a virtual, intelligent fully autonomous tutor.
VIPKID is downsizing. This job displacement is happening now.
It will end in complete decimation of all VIPKID teacher jobs.
Many optimists say that jobs will go, jobs will come.
In the Industrial Revolution, artisan jobs became assembly line jobs–jobs were lost and jobs were gained. However, in this scenario, the job of tutoring is completed. It is lost in time forever.
Adam Smith’s division of labor has reached its final chapter. Throughout history we’ve been improving the tools so that we can do the jobs easier, now it has gotten to the point where the tools can do the jobs without us.
Every field is being forced into entertainment and service. Soon the service business is finished too, even bartenders are being replaced by robots right now.
You, me, and a whole lot of other people are part of the growing surplus population as the unemployment rate rises, never to come down again. Brace yourselves. A cartoon is coming for your VIPKID Teacher job.
I’d be willing to bet that by 2020, the demand for language learning will have dropped significantly.
A.I. already allows an English speaker to give a talk on stage into a microphone, and the speakers sound out every sentence in Chinese, in the speaker’s own voice. In such a world, where you can wear an earpiece and it translates in real time the language into your own, why spend years learning each additional language?
By the time they have mastered English fluency, it will be worthless.
Every Chinese person will be able to communicate with every American in real time without the need for language mastery.
It would be like a person wanting to go to school for radiology, or truck driving. A.I. is quickly supplanting humans in those fields.
Three trends drive Dino’s evolution:
The first is a lot more data (your recorded classes).
VIPKID Recorded classes are the lifeblood of the DINO machine learning system.
The second thing is vastly more computer power. This is why VIPKID in bed with Tencent is harnessing cloud computing.
Last, breakthroughs in the basic algorithms.
When you put the above three together, there is a million fold improvement compared with just a few years ago.
What does this mean for you?
Your job is gone completely.
When you signed your contract with VIPKID,
you became a data contributor. With each and every class you teach, you are giving VIPKID training data to make its A.I. stronger.
VIPKID in its “Great Decoupling” plan, aims to decouple one American teacher with one Chinese student, and supplant that model with one A.I. teacher which can teach thousands of Chinese students simultaneously.
Even if VIPKID freezes all its research and training right now, the existing technology it already has, turned into its A.I. Dino product can generate a working, animated, fully autonomous A.I. that is capable of teaching a 25 minute English class and submitting feedback.
VIPKID has different ways of deploying this technology in its new platform. These different ways lead to the same outcome. VIPKID is changing the future of work, and not in a way that everyone benefits.
I do NOT make any referral incentive or ANY money
of any sort when you sign up with VIPKID or any other company.
I’m not here to make money off your referral.
I’m here to give you the truth.
I now work for a company which in my opinion
has a MUCH better teaching platform
and also offers pay higher than VIPKID.
NOBODY should buy their first home until they’d looked at ten other homes…because they tend to buy the first one they look at!
When you look at ten, you see so many more options, values, pay, neighborhoods, culture. You expand your understanding.
I now work for a company which has a MUCH better teaching platform and also offers pay higher than VIPKID.
It also has paid training–ongoing, $10/hour paid training–optional.
You won’t get fired for cancelling classes.
VIPKID gained popularity not because it’s the best option for teachers, but because it has the most promiscuous business model.
There is good reason not to trust any VIPKID teacher or employee who tells you about VIPKID, because they have a motive to sell you on its greatness and conceal its flaws.
When you join my company, they send you a free gift basket (you choose what’s in it).
https://t.mmears.com?referralCode=T136063
I’ll get a bonus and YOU will get priority viewing for your application. Win/win.
Source
Thanks for making this public John. I was going to apply for VIP Kid right after the holidays. I am considering looking into other companies after what you said in your video. I just have one question… How do you know that other companies won't go the same route with automation?
But VIPKID is not downsizing…. They are expanding. First major inaccuracy I see in your information presented.
I sent an email to the address in the disclaimer this morning. Actually this video has explained some of my discomfort in this venue. I’ve recently joined the ranks of your previous employer.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/09/11/inspirational-robots-begin-replacing-teachers-within-10-years/
I don't know about eliminating jobs, but VIPKID is unprofessional and ridiculous. Like thousands, I was hired under this new policy to do a kick off meeting, then teach 5 trials. They do not follow through with what was promised and communication is terrible with these tickets. Not to mention all the tech issues they blame on the teacher, phantom bookings, docking pay, praying for bookings, and begging for 5 apple feedback. It's all ridiculous. I am fully booked now with a great company that has NO hoops to jump through. You tell them when you're available, and they book you… period. You accidentally miss a class? No deduction in pay. You have a question? Send a text and get an answer. Telling VIPKID to stuff it was the best thing I ever did!
Thank you Mr. John for the very well written and honest little essay. I really appreciate the information about
the company`s business model and its intentions in the near future. Yes, I am afraid that most people will become
"unnecessary" in the very near future, and yes, I do believe that VIPKIDS teachers are being used to help the
machine to learn.
Your theory has merit. Still, I hope you're wrong! 😉 So are you willing to share what company you're with now? Inquiring minds wish to know…
Do you have any resources that I could start looking at in terms of how this AI, which is coming much sooner than I anticipated, is going to affect the whole of society. What are we going to do without jobs, I mean i could think of a whole lot of things I could do without a job, but not without money.
I will again watch this until the end.
There isn't any point in getting into a sinking ship.
I really appreciate all the wisdom you've given us!
Thank you for your honesty.
If you are saying that a solution is to just choose another online English company to work for, well, two things: 1) What prevents the others from going that direction? In looking at other companies yesterday, there is another company that mentions AI on their website, too. Then 2) why work for another company when VIPKid will probably price the competition out of the market? Chinese parents will choose the cool cheaper animated option over the antiquated human model. Right?
churn and burn…
Thank you. Needed this – in a weird way, one of the most inspiring videos I cam across all day. And so much is making sense now. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/artificial-intelligence-edtech-new-era-chinas-danny-rowshandel-%E9%A5%B6%E8%81%83%E5%AE%81/
I have been in no bookings fun for over a month at VIPKID. At my other company, I was consistently booked with 12-16 bookings a day.
You have been right about pretty much everything so far. VIPKID monitors their blogs so closely that they will not even state the cold truth that the average wait for highly paid teachers is at least a month for real bookings.
My posts about my story and overstaffing in relation to questions by others lasted about 5 minutes. I couldn't believe it. I have decided that VIPKID is just not worth it. I think that I will give my precious Memorial Day hours to another company instead. I thought that VIPKID could benefit, but I guess not.
Babel Fish will beat AI teachers to online ESL making all language barriers a thing of the past anyhow. Make money while you can, then learn a new way.
Thank you for your honesty.
I don't mean to be mean… but why are you so weird/crazy-sounding?
Your VIPKID prediction is coming true.
I am your number one ❤️
I just started with VipKid and I can already see it coming. It's sort of blatant. Can you give any hints about better platforms to teach from? I've thought about doing my own non-platform teaching on patreon or something.
Correct me if I'm wrong: teachers are slowly but surely participating in their own execution!
I've been working for VIPKid for almost a year now, and I am seriously considering going to another company. VIPKid does not understand that I have a serious, chronic illness (epilepsy), and that sometimes, I am unable to do my job because of my condition. I have sent them all of my paperwork and medication labels from my doctors, but they don't listen. I just keep getting automated, generic, poorly translated messages, and it takes forever (and sometimes never) for someone to reply to my e-mails and tickets. Also, the platform or "Teacher Portal" is always having technical issues, not to mention the fact that you sometimes have to deal with rude, ungrateful children, and parents who are unreasonable, and do not understand or appreciate all of the work and sacrifice that you have put into this "job." I had a Chinese child say "F— you!" to me, and I had a mother who sent in feedback saying that I was unfit to work with children. I've also been hit on by fathers, and I had to watch a child pick their nose and eat the contents! Oh yes! I've also read some horror stories, including the story of the mother who was fired because she missed work after her 9-year-old daughter died suddenly. VIPKid is getting too big for their britches, and I want to say thank you so much for this enlightening and eye-opening video. I am in the process of applying with other ESL companies!
The little girl has to like princesses ? I hope the new AI teachers are more nuanced than you ?
They cannot teach thousands of students with one Dino/robot. Some of the kiddies need behaviour control.
Ohhh this is hard to watch. I hope you find some much needed help.