Everyone I knew in grad school really needed their TA income. Among the many reasons that 'AI' taking over TA work will be horrible, once again money that used to go to humans is being poured into the vaults of big tech.
Gross.
This will also makes graduate school much, much less accessible—because teaching helps students finance their education—and less effective, because teaching the basics patiently, over and over again, and figuring out the pitfalls, really helps cement your own understanding.
It's also important that when you are in grad school (in Canada anyway) there are no classes on 'how to teach'. My supervisor made a special effort to work with me on pedagogy but for most? You learn to teach by TAing.
It just goes to show how for academia teaching, especially teaching undergrads, is not really the work that is valued, despite colleges and universities being in theory educational institutions.
Which is a separate, but serious, problem.
It's really too bad, because honestly that's where the vast majority of us are going to make our most significant impact. On the other hand, I feel that if teaching was more valued, they might not have let me do it 'cause I'm too autistic.
