Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

gatesnotes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 418 posts

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#21

Post by PheonixPharts »

asabla wrote: post #15
croes wrote: post #5

>Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to keep up in math. But now, you have an AI tutor like the one Sal describes by your side. Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to solve the equations in math. But now you have an AI that solves it for you. I bet that there will be more students of the later type than the former.

For sure! But idea behind these AI tutors are to help and guide you through the process of asking questions until you understands. Will it be perfect? hell no! Just another tool for teachers to either enhance and/or give extra help with almost no extra resources. Hopefully this will pan out for the better then the worse

> pan out for the better then the worse

While I'm sure this is a typo, I also expect this is exactly how it will play out. For the better initially, then, for the worse a short time later.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#22

Post by tombert »

croes wrote: post #5

>Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to keep up in math. But now, you have an AI tutor like the one Sal describes by your side. Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to solve the equations in math. But now you have an AI that solves it for you. I bet that there will be more students of the later type than the former.

I dunno, I've found ChatGPT (and its clones) have been immensely useful as a learning tool for me. Having it summarize stuff in different ways and being able to immediately ask clarifying questions has been sort of a game-changing learning tool, at least for me.

I don't think they should allow use of AI during tests because yeah, it'd just do all the work for them and they wouldn't learn anything, but I absolutely think there's value in being able to use it as a 24/7 instant tutor, particularly since ChatGPT can be coerced into explaining things in basically any style that you'd like.

Something I've found fun and bizarrely useful is having ChatGPT explain stuff in terms of scripts from King of the Hill. It's fun to hear Hank Hill compare ZF Set Theory to something as reliable and efficient as propane while Dale goes into tirades about how the government imposed the axiom of choice to distract away from System F.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#23

Post by llm_trw »

chii wrote: post #9
croes wrote: post #5

>Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to keep up in math. But now, you have an AI tutor like the one Sal describes by your side. Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to solve the equations in math. But now you have an AI that solves it for you. I bet that there will be more students of the later type than the former.

> But now you have an AI that solves it for you. and then the AI explains how it was solved, step by step. You can repeatedly ask it to clarify, and it has endless patience and won't get bored or sick of you. Eventually, you understand how the equation is solved. No human teacher would be able to achieve this.

>Eventually, you understand how the equation is solved. No human teacher would be able to achieve this.

One of the things I have hugely enjoyed about LLMs is asking the same question again and again until I finally get why it is the way it is.

No human could deal with "I don't get it, try explaining it another way..." after the 10th time.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#25

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

moomoo11 wrote: post #12

AI is like the promise of back when consumer internet was just popping off. You can have all the knowledge at your fingertips! What actually happened: ads shoved down our throats and way more distractions (porn, games, etc.) Meanwhile math and reading levels continue to plummet. So I don’t have high hopes. Those of us who use tools to succeed will continue to do so. Others who can’t control themselves will keep compl…

The consumer internet is a blessing and a curse. Without consumers the internet doesn't have much economic benefit. To use the internet to sell things you need the normies- so you pull all the non-technical people onto the internet where they are scammed, hacked, and manipulated at scale.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#26

Post by falcor84 »

croes wrote: post #5

>Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to keep up in math. But now, you have an AI tutor like the one Sal describes by your side. Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to solve the equations in math. But now you have an AI that solves it for you. I bet that there will be more students of the later type than the former.

But does a typical teenager actually need to "keep up in math"? I would hazard a guess that only maybe 5% of people would need to ever utilize any math beyond basic algebra. Wouldn't it make more sense to leave these kids to do something else with their time, while offering personalized (possibly AI supported) math programs to those who actually intend to do something with it?

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#27

Post by arresin »

GolfPopper wrote: post #14
chii wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But now you have an AI that solves it for you. and then the AI explains how it was solved, step by step. You can repeatedly ask it to clarify, and it has endless patience and won't get bored or sick of you. Eventually, you understand how the equation is solved. No human teacher would be able to achieve this.

But sometimes it makes up answers that are wrong but sound plausible to you. You have no way to tell when it does this, and neither does it.

Or when you tell it you think the answer is something else it agrees with you and apologies that yes, now it can see, 2+2 does equal 5.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#28

Post by Ghexor »

chii wrote: post #9
croes wrote: post #5

>Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to keep up in math. But now, you have an AI tutor like the one Sal describes by your side. Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to solve the equations in math. But now you have an AI that solves it for you. I bet that there will be more students of the later type than the former.

> But now you have an AI that solves it for you. and then the AI explains how it was solved, step by step. You can repeatedly ask it to clarify, and it has endless patience and won't get bored or sick of you. Eventually, you understand how the equation is solved. No human teacher would be able to achieve this.

A human teacher can see the problem from the students perspective and understand the error they make and why they make it. No current ai would be able to achieve this. But alas, few human teachers can or will take the time to do this per student. Infinite time and patience really are the ai's superpower here IMO.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#29

Post by photochemsyn »

croes wrote: post #5

>Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to keep up in math. But now, you have an AI tutor like the one Sal describes by your side. Picture this: You're a seventh-grade student who struggles to solve the equations in math. But now you have an AI that solves it for you. I bet that there will be more students of the later type than the former.

Solve one problem with the help of a LLM, then solve three problems of the same type without the help of a LLM. Might need a human teacher to explain to the student why this approach is necessary, though.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#30

Post by neuralnetes-COO »

GolfPopper wrote: post #14
chii wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But now you have an AI that solves it for you. and then the AI explains how it was solved, step by step. You can repeatedly ask it to clarify, and it has endless patience and won't get bored or sick of you. Eventually, you understand how the equation is solved. No human teacher would be able to achieve this.

But sometimes it makes up answers that are wrong but sound plausible to you. You have no way to tell when it does this, and neither does it.

That is the entire purpose of LLMOps. Provide guardrails to prevent hallucination and ensure precise control of GenAI output.
Post reply on HN