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

61–70 of 418 posts

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#61

Post by emacsen »

This has seemed like the next logical step in education for a while now.

I recently used ChatGPT to help me understand some Kubernetes and Terraform configuration. It was able to talk to me about the configuration and also help me understand some of the larger context- how information flows between the systems, what the terms mean, etc.

It provided direct explanations, and metaphors when I needed it, and let me ask clarifying questions.

This kind of learning system would be especially useful for people like myself who have Learning Disabilities, where once I understand a topic, I can speed ahead, but sometimes I'll just get "stuck", sometimes for days/weeks. Having a tutor can help, but there's a lot of embarrassment and that can lead to anxiety, which can in turn make it harder to learn.

Obviously such a system will need some safeguards around it, but having a system like this be able to both explain and point to primary sources could be a complete game changer for students.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#62

Post by tayo42 »

neuralnetes-COO wrote: post #30
GolfPopper wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How can you tell what's true or not?

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#63

Post by neuralnetes-COO »

tayo42 wrote: post #62
neuralnetes-COO wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How can you tell what's true or not?

You have to develop your own QA methods to ensure output is exactly what you want.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#64

Post by AlexandrB »

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…

Having been through a few technology cycles now, I am also skeptical. We're in the honeymoon phase where anything seems possible and everything is cheap or free (VC/company subsidized). What will AI look like when it comes time to pay the piper? More ads? Perpetual subscriptions?

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#65

Post by nicklecompte »

tombert wrote: post #22
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 th…

Incredibly depressing to read this comment when I have tested GPT-4 extensively on simple finite group theory, and it could not reliably distinguish associativity from commutativity, either in prose or in computations, even for very small groups where I gave the multiplication table. The only simple abstract algebra problems it could solve were cliches it almost certainly memorized. I would never use an LLM for learning undergraduate mathematics.

It is overwhelmingly likely that you are learning incorrect facts about mathematics from ChatGPT, especially with the distracting gimmick of using cartoon characters.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#66

Post by tombert »

ben_w wrote: post #59
tombert wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> 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. For any test where there's an AI good enough to cheat with and cheap enough students can…

Well, no, I absolutely and fundamentally disagree with that.

We didn't just stop teaching children how to read the second that text-to-speech stuff came about, and we didn't stop teaching basic arithmetic the second that calculators were invented, and we didn't stop teaching algebra the second that Wolfram Alpha was released.

There is value in learning the fundamentals of things. If you never actually learn algebra, then it becomes effectively impossible to do the more advanced stuff.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#67

Post by llm_trw »

ben_w wrote: post #59
tombert wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> 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. For any test where there's an AI good enough to cheat with and cheap enough students can…

Fountain pens are easier to use than most ball point pens. If you need to think deeply about a problem there are few better things than a binder of a3 paper and a fountain pen to think.

That said the uselessness of education is the point. It's a signal that you're willing to do pointless work for future rewards. We may as well replace it with counting beans and it would be just as effective.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#68

Post by falcor84 »

Phiwise_ wrote: post #47
falcor84 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Those 5% go on to make an upper-class salary sitting in an air-conditioned office instead of a lower-class salary turning wrenches and stacking boxes. What makes more sense than enabling everyone who can to attain that life? (Plus every one of them who gets out makes life better for the rest at least by reducing downward pressure on wages, and hopefully also by creating new business opportunities that raise wages fur…

Speaking of AI, I wouldn't be surprised if, in the next decade, jobs that involve turning wrenches would pay significantly more than most jobs that can be done fully on a computer.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#69

Post by Hypocritelefty »

7thpower wrote: post #19

I am a high school dropout and who learned math using Khan Academy after never having completed more than pre-algebra in middle school. Sal Khan’s work changed my life and allowed me to build a foundation in not only math, but also finance and economics, that allowed me to feel confident enough to go to college. I did not have a support system or people in my life who could teach me these things, but I had the intern…

[dead]

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#70

Post by Pulcinella »

Background: I taught high school science for half a decade and now I am in tech.

This will never take off. One, there is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. There is no money in Ed.Tech. What little money there is goes to the obvious stuff like student records databases. Anything that requires an ongoing subscription fee is dead in the water. The only reason those stupid smartboards took off is because they make school boards look cool, they are a one time cost, and can be paid for with bonds (because they are a one time cost). Teachers don't want them (projectors and document cameras are good, though). Ed.Tech is a wasteland of failed startups. Part of the problem is also that classic "the people with the purchasing power are not the people who will be using the product" problem.

Two, everyone outside of education thinks "well has anyone just tried sitting down with the kids and talking to them/explaining it to them?" Yes, obviously. The problem isn't that they are lazy, snot-nosed kids (that's a problem well within an experienced teacher's skill set to solve). The problem is what is the AI going to do with the kid says "fuck you" to the AI because they haven't eaten since lunch the previous day (school is the only place they get regular meals), or they don't even know what to ask because they are basically 4 grades behind in math, or the wifi is dead for the 8th time that month because the school board will never pay for infrastructure.

Three, what if the AI is just wrong and starts confusing the student? Even GPT-4 fabricates things all the time. Sure it can generally put words in grammatically correct order and is passible for writing no one is going to read anyway (like marketing emails). But the moment it requires actual domain knowledge all these AI models completely fall down because, again, they don't actually understand anything, they just are really good at guessing what word comes next.

Post reply on HN