There’s been a tsunami of news about the latest exponential advances in generative AI over the last few months, and if anything that wave just keeps on growing. From big tech partnerships or massive investments in OpenAI and its rivals, to big open source players, and of course a whole lot of reminders about the risks and dangers around all this growth and where it goes from here.
I think it’s fair to say that a lot of us would love to see some more cheerful generative AI news, or even just something other than “it’s already here, it’s going to be smarter than all of us and find us all to be surplus to requirements on this planet” and make the Terminator movies look like Disney films.
And here we have it from Sal Khan - the founder of Khan Academy in a blog post from mid-March:
Today we’re introducing a small AI pilot for a limited number of teachers, students, and donors. As society grapples with AI, we view it as our responsibility to work deeply with this new technology to explore its potential in education. I believe we are uniquely suited to do this work.
I’d say their proven track record of 15 years of success in delivering top quality education, with the admirable aim of making it available to all, backs that statement up very nicely. Which makes this news exponentially greater :)
The announcement post is full of money quotes, or in this case non-money quotes - since Khan Academy is a non-profit organization. Said far better and with much more power:
As a non-profit organization, our focus is students, teachers, and administrators. Our North Star is driving more learning, not driving shareholder value or driving profits.
You could say that we do have a bottom line and it's that every student deserves the opportunity to reach their full potential.
I find it impossible not to love those words and love what Khan Academy is looking to do here.
Here’s one more quote, that highlights not just some details on the use case for GPT-4, but also how they are planning to support one of the most valuable human resources we have - teachers.
When GPT-4 is carefully adapted to a learning environment like Khan academy, it has enormous potential. It can guide students as they progress through courses and ask them questions like a tutor. Would. AI can assist teachers with administrative tasks, which saves them valuable time so they can focus on what's most important- their students.
I’m already happy and excited to see this news, and looking forward to seeing how this progresses from here. You can see lots more great words and some short demo video clips as well as a 20 minute demo of this new technology here:
If this gives any of you 50% of the happy vibes it’s given me, I think you’ll be quite happy.
I used the khan academy for one of my financial licenses. Great recommendation.