The Ben Mulroney Show - Will A.I. Replace Teachers for good? And would Parents even want that?

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Parents helping kids purchase homes -Will A.I. Replace Teachers for good? And would Parents even want that? If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of your Thursday with us. There's a new study out by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. And it is worth a conversation with you, actually. They asked home buyers, first time home buyers, a number of questions. They found out that 64% of people rented for an average of 6.3 years before buying their first home, and 54% of people, this is the most interesting one, shared their home purchase with someone other than their partner or spouse. So I'd love to hear from you at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. Did you get help from someone, the parents, family, anyone to buy your first home?

Or are you helping your kids? How about partnering with friends? About 20, 22 years ago, one of my best friends and I tried to go in together to buy a house in the annex neighborhood of Toronto. It would have been such a solid investment had we bought now I was going to get the lion's share of it. I was going to get one floor. He was going to get two. And for a number of reasons the deal fell through. But he and I even back then were thinking it made a lot of sense to pool our resources. He doesn't need my help anymore. He's doing just fine. But a lot of people are doing that. People are going in with friends. They're going in with cousins or brothers and sisters are buying a place together. There are even, because I know I talked about this on my, on the weekend show when I hosted it months ago.

There are situations where perfect strangers are pooling resources to buy a single house together. They have to lay out every single in and out that you could absolutely imagine legally in binding documents before they ever do it. But that's what the system is dictating these days. So give us a call 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. I mean, when you couple these two things together,

you couple the, two thirds of people are renting for an average of six and almost six and a half years before buying their first home. Like people need to save up. They need to save up for a long time before they can make that first payment. And once they do there, most of them are not doing it alone. And look at 54% of people shared their home purchase

with someone other than their partner or spouse. That means that when you factor in all the people who are doing it with two incomes because of someone's spouse. I mean, that's the tiny fraction of a minority is doing it alone. Like a single income is taking care of the purchase of a first home. That's how almost impossible it is for an individual

to get into the housing market in Canada today. But this is it, listen, the landscape is changing. We have a new government. We've got a new government that has, as one of their priorities, their seven governing priorities is to fix the housing crisis. And so how that happens, in what way that happens, we'll have to see.

But if we can get these numbers down, if people don't have to rent for six and a half years, so they can save a squirrel away enough money. And once they do have enough money, making sure that if one person wants to buy a house themselves, they can do it. If those two things can get taken care of, you're going to see a lot more people jumping into the market, you're going to have a lot more people sort of living that bargain of the Canadian dream that Pierre Pey have talked about so much on the on the campaign trail. Of course, we also have to build more houses, which is what the

this public part public private partnership that Mark Carney has been talking about build Canada. Let's let's say hi to Dan Dan welcome to the show. Hey, good morning, about. Build Canada. Let's say hi to Dan. Dan, welcome to the show. Hey, good morning, Dan. Thanks for making my call. I just got to share this with you. We've just sold our house. My wife and I just sold our house. We've been living there for 25 years. So we can help my son and my daughter-in-law buy their first house. Wow. A couple of reasons we're doing this. One is liberals are still in power. I believe they're still going to have put forward a capital gains tax on primary residents.

So we're getting out of our primary residence and splitting money between both of our kids. And the older one is buying his very first house. So we're doing this for them. That's good for you. We've got enough money to retire. We're actually going to live with them. That was part of the deal. Wow. And that we don't have to look after the house anymore. And we can start traveling after my wife retires. Parents of the year. Well done. Did when you sold the house, did you get, did you get what you were hoping for? Well, we didn't get what we,

we'd really liked because we know we were in a down market. The upside is, my son bought a house in the down market. So it kind of kind of a trade off here and and it's all good. Well, Dan, thank you for sharing that. You're a good man. Your wife is a wonderful woman. And I wish your I wish your kids the best as they embark on homeownership. Thanks, mate. All right, let's move on to john john. Thanks so much for calling in. Happy Thursday. Hey, good morning. How are you guys? Well, good morning. How are you guys? Well, thank you. Fortunately, my kids will never be able to own a home.

No, huh? And like the other, the last caller, he's gonna sell his house to be able to help his kids. That's pretty disgusting if you tell me that at my age, I'll never be able to own a home at 55. And 14 people have to get together to buy a home. That's disgusting. So I don't know what we're talking about here.

Like the economy is in the toilet. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, no, it is bleak. It is bleak. But that's why we hire governments, right? We hire governments to get us out of the messes that they create. So this is a this is a problem of our own making. And if we made the problem, we

can defeat the problem. At least that's the optimist in me speaking. Hey, Steve, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for calling in. I've been good to talk to you. I think one of your callers just mentioned about mortgage... mortgage uh... principal residence tax exemption so i'm suggesting that we allow canadians to opt-in either you

you go for the principal tax capital gains exemption or you get the right to deduct your mortgage payments and cost against your house to help you make it more affordable and then you would if you ever. And then you if you ever sell it, then you would pay a capital gains tax. But you opt in or you opt out. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for that. And look, I, every time I hear about a change to the Canadian tax code, it's always geared towards taking more from people not to make it more efficient, not to, to get a result of like, making making business in Canada more attractive.

It's always, oh, we're going to ask the wealthiest of us to pay their fair share. Just tell me what a fair share is so that we can know when it's going to stop. Mike, welcome to the show. Hey, I was in Tampa 20 years ago listening to local radio. The mayor is on the radio talking about, well, we've built all these condo towers downtown Tampa, but nobody's living there and there's no community. So what do we do? This is the mayor. And then they talk about Sydney where predatory developers come into a region, build units nobody wants. Nobody wants these units. They build them and they get out and they let the local region figure out

what's gonna happen next. We know all this. Why does nobody ever get held accountable? Where is city planning? Why isn't anybody busted, fired, jailed for building all these units nobody wants? Yeah, I mean, I think, I think the think the but I mean, you could argue that five years ago, when a lot of these these condo towers were going up, there was an appetite for those

units, which is why they built them in the first place. But that's just me. Rick, welcome to the Ben Mulrooney show. Good morning. Good morning. Well, I had one of my kids, my daughter and my son-in-law, my two grandkids moved to Alberta. It's a lot cheaper there. Yeah. They got in Spruce Grove, beautiful home they have. Whether they'll be able to afford to move back to Ontario, I don't know.

But then my son, my youngest son goes, Dad, when you and mom go, I get dibbies on the house because that's the only way we're going to be able to afford a home. Yeah, I mean, that's, well, that's the that's the other question. That's some more data from this is that 41% of people pulled used inheritance for their down payment. So, you know, people are are dipping into funds that like rainy day

funds, and they're dipping into those once in a lifetime moments where they get a windfall. But what this says is on your, on your own, by your own steam, it's very unlikely that an individual with one income is going to be able to afford a down payment on their first home. And if you can't get into the market, you're never going to go up the, up the residential ladder. No, no, you're not. And you know, they say, well, they lower now the carbon tax on fuel, but then they're going to raise it somewhere else. So that's going to take money out of

their pockets again. So it's a vicious circle. And I feel sorry for my kids right now. I'm going, yeah, we, you know, parents have to help. A lot of them have to help because of the price mortgages and everything else. Oh, listen, I have to help. A lot of them have to help because of the price mortgages and everything else. Oh, listen, I was very fortunate. I don't hide these things. I had parents, I had a dad and I have a mom who every, their guiding principle was,

how can I help my kids? And so I got help. A lot of people get help. I got the help that my parents could afford. And without them, I don't know that I'd be living in a house. I just probably wouldn't be living in the house I'm living in. But thank you very much for the call. Well, that's what we do as parents anyway, we help them if we can. Well, and that's what hopefully I'll be able to do for my kids one day.

Assuming I get that 13% Canada post-raise that I'm hoping for. So anyway, real quick, let's take George very quickly. Hey Ben, how are you? Good, thank you. Good, excellent. You know what, I was just saying to your screener there, I don't even think two incomes. No. If you take your average income now, you're probably saving enough money within 20 years. You're probably right. Hey, thank you very much for that. We've got to take a break. We've got to take a break. You've got unlimited access to music, but time, now that's limited. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard gets you unlimited PC Optima points, free grocery delivery, and time back for what matters.

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shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy zero dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. And this is the Ben Mulroney Show. I'm your host, Ben Mulroney, and we're going to take your calls again. Have you ever used one of those apps like Duolingo or one of those apps that helps

you learn another language? They're actually pretty good. I've never been able to stick with it long enough to learn anything, but, but I've always been really charmed by how they've used a technology to accelerate learning, make it more fun, make it more immersive, make the app sticky. So you want to come back to it. Well, one of the most popular ones is called Duolingo. And the CEO is under fire right now, because they've begun firing or not, not bringing back or resigning the contracts for their human employees. Instead, they're doubling down on generative AI as they launch 148 new programs. And the CEO has said,

look, this is the future. This is the future. And he said he can even see a future where there are no teachers in classrooms anymore, let alone on an app. And he believes that the outcomes for students will be better. And there are critics that say there is no scientific data to say something like that. We know that AI at this point in its short life is ubiquitous. It's everywhere. We are interacting with it absolutely everywhere. And in the world of languages, it makes sense to me that AI would take a leadership role, not just a co-pilot role, because there are rules about language. The rules on how you learn grammar in French, that hasn't changed in a very long time.

The declensions of a verb are all the same and have been forever. So to me, it's not a big deal. But I'd love to hear from you at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. How would you feel if you signed your kid up for a service and you found out that that service had no human interaction?

They weren't interacting with people at all. Everything was generative AI. Are we clutching at our pearls? Is it just an inevitability? It feels to me when you see the leap forward that we've seen in AI in just the past few years, imagine what it's gonna be like in 10 years, imagine. To me, it seems like an inevitability.

There will be somebody is gonna try to open a school with entirely AI teachers. There's gonna be some sort of tip of the sword, science first school, and there will be no human teachers. It's going to happen, right? And once that happens, we'll see the results of an education where you have no human teachers. I think you're now when it comes to when it comes to like the education system, when it comes to no human teachers. Now, when it comes to like the education system, when it comes to school grade kids, I think you cannot remove the human element

because so much of a child's development is in between the words. It's when you're turning the page, not reading the page, it's nuance, it's the gray area. And it's how a teacher identifies what a child is doing in those gray areas that determines how they interact with that child. And a great teacher can change a kid's life.

And I can't say that about AI just yet. Hey, Mike, welcome to the show. Yeah, hey, I think this is the tip of the iceberg. And I remember my dad was in the military in the 80s. And he saw a film where he saw a film of an automated warehouse that was totally run by automation. And he used to drill it into my head about how things are going to change. And my dad wasn't an educated guy, but he saw it then the hollywood writers kind of shine a light on it back months ago when they did the writer strike about how a i is really disrupting uh... you know the lives of working people and i think you know we've heard uh... andrew yang talked about it a few years ago when he

was in the running but nobody else in the political world is talking about the threat of automation and AI. Oh, I think we lost Mike. And look, you're right. I was just reading this morning that Elon Musk is talking that when he launches the the robots, what's called that optimus, you know, we've all seen the videos of optimus and it's going to be this assistant that is in your home. When that is armed with the most cutting edge AI, could that be a tutor for your kid at home?

I don't see why not. I don't see why not. It could prepare lesson plans and quizzes. It has all the information on science and history and language. Of course, one of those robots could act as a tutor for your kid. When it comes to education, I would be very nervous about eliminating the human element from school grade kids, because they depend on teachers. Hey, Ben, welcome to the show. Good morning, Ben, welcome to the show.

Good morning, Ben. Good morning. It's just a matter of time unless the unions and the industry gets protects itself just like in airlines and other and lawyers, you know, they protect their own industry. Yeah, but it's already being used and when you look at the statistics and the capabilities of teachers, they fail at some of the core subjects. Like 70% of them are illiterate at math, for example. So many parents are already using it, the kids are using it, and it's not a linear progression AI. It's exponentially faster. So where it was versus even six months ago, it's a thousand times better and in six months months, it'll be a thousand times better. Or whatever.

I think socializing our kids by having a charismatic, charming, engaged, empathetic teacher. I don't know that those things, I mean, listen, AI at some point is gonna be able to detect if a child is in crisis, but how you deal with that child in crisis is a lot of what is happening in our schools. It's not just about what they're learning in class, but who they're becoming at school is

important too. If I could respond to that. Yes. Well, you're redefining the purpose of what we're defining the education. So if, for example, you want your kid to have a babysitter and be your parent and deal with- Oh, I'm not suggesting parenting here. Well, that is, if you want an empathetic issue, that's a different role model. Empathy is not the exclusive domain of a parent. But it's not the job of the teacher per se.

So hang on, hear me out. This makes the case for vouchers for schools, for example. So in an environment where no one's having kids anymore and we have too many schools, let's say it's not necessarily here where we have, we might be bringing in 10 million immigrants a year irresponsibly, but in an environment where no one's having kids and that structure shrinks,

it makes sense to have vouchers where you send your kid, if you want them to have the human factor. Otherwise, it might be a hybrid model where you have, they can learn at home on their own, and maybe you go part-time with a human interaction. Well, thank you very much for the call, Ben. I appreciate it. Let's welcome Cam into the conversation. Ben, Ben, it's only 25 years away. That'll be 2050. The question is, the major question for the younger people today, what do the human bipeds do? It changes banking systems? How do you buy a loaf of bread? What will money look like if there's money? We're well on our way to doing that.

So, so, so what's your conclusion on, on the human element in education? The human element in education is already by our computers. Do kids play anymore? No. It's going to affect everything in civilization as we know it. Yeah, well, I appreciate that and thank you very much. And yeah, look, it's, I think the unions are gonna fight to keep their jobs and rightly so, but I don't think,

I don't think I'm broadening the definition of what a teacher is by suggesting that part of the job is to help them develop social skills and help them work as a team and identifying when there are problems in the social group that is the classroom. That is the sort of it's the eyes and the ears of the teacher who can help determine whether somebody is doing is you know under certain amount of stress or is thriving and I don't know that AI can do that just yet. Kenika, you are the final voice on this topic.

I just basically think that teachers are highly required. I think using AI and replacing AI with teachers is making us obsolete. So I teach grade 12 chemistry. And most of the children want to be doctors, engineers, and they're absolutely clueless and everyone's trying to use AI to generate answers. But when we have those oral conversations, they have no idea. They cannot orally communicate their thoughts.

But when you see it written in AI, it's perfectly put together. They don't understand what they're saying. Yeah, you think that they're finding the shortcut to answering the questions in a written form and fashion. And you need a teacher who can smoke out the cheaters. Thank you so much, Kanika, and I appreciate all your hard work as a teacher. It is very needed and I guarantee will still be needed in years to come. Wow, my scooter? Oh yeah! Get 50% off lens upgrades in the Spec Savers Spring Sale! Hey, I can upgrade my kids! You chill mom, I'll load the dishwasher.

Awesome! Exclusions apply. See Specsavers.ca for details. Offer ends soon. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show. And this day was coming. We knew it in 2018 when someone innovated, innovated the chair on a plane. And they said, why have a chair when you could stand or lean? It would take up less space. You could have more people on the plane. And so since 2018, this prototype has been working its way through the process of becoming an actual product that can be used on commercial airlines. Well, now it looks like it's being introduced. It's a company called Avion Avion interiors, and it will increase passenger capacity by 20%. It's essentially like, you're not standing,

you're sort of standing and you've got a bicycle seat so that you can prop plop down on. And, and it's going to, in Europe for these short haul flights, they're expecting that the flights will be anywhere between one and five pounds. And, and so then I think about it in the Canadian context. And this is where I wanna have a conversation with you at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK.

We don't have low cost carriers that can offer deals like that here. That just doesn't happen. I mean, I had to take a one way flight from here to Montreal once, from here to Ottawa, I'm sorry, for 750 bucks. That flight should be going every 15 minutes and it should be costing 125 bucks or 200 bucks.

And that didn't happen. So we're never gonna get down to a place where if I'm trading my seat for a standing position, I'm gonna keep so much more money in my pocket that it'll be worth it for certain types of flights. So the question then is, what would you, what's the longest you would be willing to fly in a standing position and how much would you be willing to pay? So for me, the longest flight I would do is like two hours. But that's only if I'm saving 85% on the flight.

Maybe 50%. I think 50% on if it's an important flight for me to take because it's gotta be worth it for me. If I'm giving up comfort, if I'm giving up 85% of the comfort, I should be getting most of that savings back. If I'm by purchasing that that seat, I'm allowing the airline to maximize their profits. Some of that's got to come back to me every time I was going to say put my seat in the chair,

but there's no chair. And so I would say two hours like here to Montreal, chair. And so I would say two hours like here to Montreal, because don't forget, you're also taxiing and waiting on your boarding. You're not you're not. It's not a it's not a one hour 15 minute flight, you're on the plane for two hours. Right. So that's so those are the parameters that I would be living with. And I'd love to hear from you 416-870-6400 or one triple eight two to five talk. Frankie, welcome to the show. Good morning. How are you guys? Very well. So would you take a flight where you had to stand or lean?

Well, you know what? I have a better idea. Why don't we have those bicycles turn the propeller on the plane so everybody can pedal? What do you think of that? I think that's a great idea. But then you got to get paid. Listen, if I'm if I'm producing the energy, Frankie, then I want to get paid. Well, listen, make the flight free. How's that? Well, no, if I'm providing a service, if I'm providing a service by getting on the bicycle seat, I should be getting paid. But I do take your point. But no, listen, would you take one of these? Would you take one of these to New York City, for

example? Oh, yeah, lying down, lying down. But that's the whole point. If you're, if you're lying down, there's fewer seats. That's how stupid this whole idea is. Nobody I don't know that it's stupid flights are it's increasingly more expensive to run these airlines. The airlines are looking for deals. And they've done the market research that suggests that there is a large number of people who

would be willing to accept this sort of new arrangement. And so they have to make it available. And if they can save money, the seats are also lighter, which means they'll be spending less on fuel costs. Like, there's a whole bunch of positive knock-on effects from them with the exception of not being able to sit. The people who do these researches are the same people that watch too many cartoons.

That's the problem. Yeah, listen, I wouldn't, I'm not poo-pooing it out of hand, Frankie. It's not gonna be for me 10 times out of 10, but one time out of 10 when I'm taking a business trip to Ottawa, for example, I don't know that I would if it was the middle of the day. Like if I get on a plane at six in the morning, I want to close my eyes for half an hour. For sure. I want to

close my eyes. I'm tired. I don't want to. I don't want to start my day yet. Just because I'm on a plane doesn't mean I've started my day. But Frankie, if it was middle of the day, and all I had to do was go there, take a meeting and come back, why wouldn't I try to save some money? Well, listen, I'm working on researching right now a plane that's being launched by Bungie Corps. And I'm telling you, it works. You have enough Bungie Corps, you can push the plane from here to New York. No problem. Well, Frankie, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Let's welcome Joe to the show. Hello there.

Hi. How are you doing? I'm very well. What do you think of this idea of standing during a flight? It's going to be a great idea, but the price will go up a month after they implemented this. Yes, I could see that happening in Canada. They would come up with a reason why it's now more expensive. Exactly. The only the only like in Europe, they've got Ryanair, for example, the discount airline, and those guys would be committed to I don't think you'd pay more than 10 pounds to fly from Dublin to London or from from London to Paris. Ben, I was in Italy 2017. I flew from Rome to Palermo, Sicily, for $90 Canadian. Yeah, yeah. Well, they, because they listen, it's not it's comparing apples to oranges, or rather, it's like comparing an apple orchard to a bag of apples. We are the bag of apples over here. We have two,

the landmass is huge, and we don't have enough people to get the economies of scale that would allow the prices to drop. But in Europe, I think you're gonna see a lot of people being able to fly for very, very cheaply because of stuff like this. Who do we have now? We've got Lori. Lori, welcome to the show.

I would 100% do this. Yeah. Maybe at my age right now, I think I would have to limit it to about two hours considering boarding and departing. So maybe pushing it to three and a half. So you go to New York? Yeah, when I was young though,

I would do this to Europe. I wouldn't care. When I was younger, if I could save money when you're in school and start your family and everything, and you can save money and go where you wanna go, 100%, I will stand for eight hours. And how much would you have to save to be willing to stand for eight hours?

I'm gonna say 75%. Would be really reasonable, yep. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Yeah, 75% to stand. Yeah, I think that's a fair bargain. If they're not willing to do it, there are a lot of people who are just going to turn and walk away and plant themselves in a very comfortable seat. Thank you all for joining us in that

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