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Sal Khan discusses importance of AI in education at IIT2024 Global Conference
Khan spoke about his Academy’s AI-powered teaching assistant, Khanmigo
Sal Khan speaking at the IIT2024 Global Conference / Screengrab/PaniitUsa Youtube
Educator Sal Khan delivered a keynote speech on the importance of the use of AI (artificial intelligence) in education at the IIT Global Conference in Washington on Jan. 12.
“There are a lot of fears about AI and I have some worries too about many other domains but I am very very optimistic that if good people...put more energy and resources in AI than the bad people are, that this is going to be a net positive,” Khan said during his virtual presentation.
The founder and CEO of Khan Academy, a free online non-profit educational platform with thousands of video lessons teaching a wide spectrum of academic subjects, including mathematics and science, Khan named one of TIMES’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2012.
During his address, Khan discussed his academy’s newly launched AI-powered teaching assistant called Khanmigo. The feature launched at the same time as GPT-4, was launched to mitigate the issue of cheating and plagiarism raised by school systems when ChatGPT first launched.
One of the guardrails in place is that each test that a student takes on the platform is recorded and viewable by the teacher. The second guardrail in place is how the tool responds to a “tell me the answer” prompt inserted by the student. Khanmigo tells the students that it is there to help them learn and understand the problem and not just give away the answer.
Khan explained that teachers receive a transcript of the efforts put in by students on a particular project. For instance, if it is an essay, the transcript will include the hours put in while writing it, and will also report that the material is consistent with what the student has been learning in class. In case of a copy-paste report, the tool will highlight the same to the teacher.
The tool also has a second AI moderating these conversations. In case students tell the AI they are thinking about self-harm or harming others, the conversation will be shut down immediately and the parents as well as the school administration will be informed simultaneously to avoid a crisis.
“I think that the future of assessment is going to look a lot like this. You’re going to have hands-on activity-based, simulation based engagements, where you can get a read on how the student performed there,” Khan predicted.
Ending his presentation on the right way to harness AI given its many dangers, Khan states, “We can get as excited as we want about AI. But HI (human intelligence), human potential. You know what are these eight billion minds capable of, that’s always been the most fascinating thing. And if we can use AI to enable that, then I think it’s pretty exciting time to live.”
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