Can AI solve the biggest problem in education, or is it just a surveillance trap? 🏫 We investigate the Two Sigma Problem, a 40-year-old educational mystery which found that one-on-one tutoring improves student performance by two standard deviations (moving an average student to the top 2%). For decades, this was impossible to scale—until now.

1. The Promise: We break down how new AI tutors (like Khanmigo and Studient) are finally delivering on Benjamin Bloom's dream. By offering personalized, mastery-based progression, these systems are achieving learning gains double that of traditional classrooms, potentially closing the equity gap for students who can't afford private tutors.

2. The Surveillance State: But at what cost? We expose the hidden trade-off: total data surveillance. To function, these systems require constant monitoring of a child's attention, behavior, and even emotional state. We discuss the "Alpha School" backlash, where parents pulled their kids out after realizing the "AI-first" model meant 9-year-olds were being surveilled at home via webcams and denied snacks until they met algorithmic learning metrics.

3. The Human Deficit: We analyze the psychological risk of replacing human teachers with "frictionless" AI. Research shows that while AI can teach facts, it cannot model social skills or empathy, leading to "social skill atrophy" and increased isolation among students who spend their days interacting with screens instead of peers.