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Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

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Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#81

Post by jobs_throwaway »

xscott wrote: post #52
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's absolutely a bug that needs to be fixed, but I think it's possible. Maybe have the network which generates the answer be moderated by another network that assesses the truthiness of it. It's just a matter of priorities for the company designing the models.

Especially in a limited domain like grade school math, it seems entirely plausible that we can have models in very short order that ~never hallucinate. There's no external dependencies and the problem space is extremely well-defined and constrained. Much, much, much easier than making something like Chat-GPT never hallucinate

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#82

Post by olooney »

red_admiral wrote: post #35

Both Bill Gates and Sal Khan (and, for good measure, Mark Zuckerberg too) have tried revolutionizing education with technology before. If we look at exactly how and where past attempts went wrong, we might find some challenges for this one too. I remember when MOOCs were the future of education, as students across the world would have free access to the best lectures from the best teachers and could watch them over a…

"We try things. Occasionally they even work." —Rob Balder

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#83

Post by doctoboggan »

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…

Impressive! You should give yourself more credit as it takes more than just internet and patience to teach yourself enough to get into college.

I am also excited for society. However I am worried as well. While an AI tutor who is able to understand the child's current knowledge and gear the lessons toward what will make the most sense will be very powerful, it could also be used for brainwashing, propaganda, misinformation, etc. While we've invented a better way to transfer knowledge, we haven't removed the human desire to control information.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#84

Post by babl-yc »

Pulcinella wrote: post #70

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…

There may be "no money in EdTech" but that doesn't mean there can't be impactful products for it.

Students don't want to pay for Google but every student still uses it.

Some students will want to waste time if given access to more tools like AI agents, but the motivated ones will use it to their advantage. Even if it's wrong sometimes, it's right a lot, perfect for rubber ducking, and almost always gives answers that are at least interesting or point you in a useful direction.

As for "GPT-4" fabricating things, I remember in school how I wrote essays and was given A's despite citing NYT and Wikipedia. Fabrications exist all over the place. If anything, hallucinations might give more examples as to how to be skeptical of any source and look for direct sources as much as possible.

In college I went to office hours and there was 30 minute line to talk to the TAs. AI agents respond instantly. These things are going to overall transform education for the better.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#85

Post by miki123211 »

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.

> no human teacher would be able to achieve this.

They would, but only if you were rich enough to afford a personal tutor. There's plenty of scientific evidence that students who have one learn a lot faster than those stuck in a classroom. With AI, you can probably get most of the benefits of a personal tutor for a fraction of the price.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#86

Post by ben_w »

tombert wrote: post #66
ben_w wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

> We didn't just stop teaching children how to read the second that text-to-speech stuff came about

TTS from visual input isn't good enough to be an example of that yet. It's good, but not that good.

> 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.

And yet, my A-level exams 22 years ago required me to have a graphic calculator.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#87

Post by hinkley »

tangjurine wrote: post #75
Pulcinella wrote: post #70

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…

Idk... My company is doing pretty well (ixl learning)

I suspect there’s a difference between selling to school boards and selling to individual learners.

I know college kids are using edtech, but they don’t like it much. And there was one-time purchasing during the quarantine.

And obviously Khan academy must be doing okay.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#88

Post by Pulcinella »

babl-yc wrote: post #84
Pulcinella wrote: post #70

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…

There may be "no money in EdTech" but that doesn't mean there can't be impactful products for it. Students don't want to pay for Google but every student still uses it. Some students will want to waste time if given access to more tools like AI agents, but the motivated ones will use it to their advantage. Even if it's wrong sometimes, it's right a lot, perfect for rubber ducking, and almost always gives answers that…

As for "GPT-4" fabricating things, I remember in school how I wrote essays and was given A's despite citing NYT and Wikipedia. Fabrications exist all over the place. If anything, hallucinations might give more examples as to how to be skeptical of any source and look for direct sources as much as possible.

"Actually it's good that AI sucks because it will teach people to be more skeptical" is not a very compelling argument.

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#89

Post by [deleted] »

hinkley wrote: post #87
tangjurine wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk... My company is doing pretty well (ixl learning)

I suspect there’s a difference between selling to school boards and selling to individual learners. I know college kids are using edtech, but they don’t like it much. And there was one-time purchasing during the quarantine. And obviously Khan academy must be doing okay.

[deleted]

Re: Sal Khan is pioneering innovation in education again

#90

Post by n4r9 »

Calling this "Brave New Words" reminds me of a recent submission:

"For tech CEOs, the dystopia is the point" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40371835

> a time-honored internet tradition: pointing out that the science fictional reference point a tech founder put forward was not an aspirational one, but, in fact, a dystopia containing a warning meant to be heeded, not emulated.

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