Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, is arguably the most visible figure in U.S. education. He’s drawn praise from figures such as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and former first lady Michelle Obama, his 2011 TED Talk on reinventing education garnered some 6 million views, and his free online tutorials have racked up billions of views on YouTube.
So observers took notice, when, in May 2023, Mr. Khan declared in another TED Talk that artificial intelligence represented “probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen.” He understood that AI could help students cheat, but he also argued it was capable of personalizing lessons for every student, essentially providing every child with a customized, digital tutor.
Mr. Khan developed a chatbot called Khanmigo after being given early access to ChatGPT. He touted the tool in a “60 Minutes” television segment with Anderson Cooper, was featured in the book “AI for Good” by Atlantic staff writer Josh Tyrangiel, and penned his own book, “Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That’s a Good Thing).”
Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, touted the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in tutoring students back in 2023. It has proved more challenging than he expected, but he retains his optimism.
But the revolution has not yet materialized the way Mr. Kahn predicted.
In an April interview with the news site Chalkbeat, the YouTube star acknowledged that “for a lot of students,” Khanmigo “was a non-event.” Many “just don’t use it much,” he said. Still, he remains bullish on AI’s future in education.
He sat down with Monitor AI Bureau Chief Aaron Glantz in July. Here are excerpts of their conversation, lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Aaron Glantz: When I started reporting on AI and education, everyone pointed me to you because you were working with ChatGPT before it was known to most people. So I’m curious, what have you learned over the past few years?
Sal Khan: From the beginning, we were very careful that the AI wouldn’t give answers, that it would be Socratic; it would nudge you forward; it would provide teachers and parents with transparency as to what was going on. But what we realized is that for a lot of students, just having that extra layer of support wasn’t enough. Imagine I walk into a classroom and I say, “Hey kids, my name is Sal. I think I’m a pretty good tutor. I’m just going to sit in the back of the room here, and if any of you have any questions, I’m happy to help you.” Well, you can imagine what would happen. Some of the kids maybe would leverage it, but a lot of kids might be too embarrassed. They wouldn’t know how to do it.
The easiest thing for the student to do is cut and paste the Google search’s AI summary and they’ll have the answer. You’re offering a different path, but the students didn’t necessarily engage in the way that you had hoped, right?
Yeah. When we launched Khanmigo in 2023, we were already acutely aware ChatGPT was going to be a cheating nightmare. We have observed kids in classrooms doing Khan Academy. Then they’d go to another ed tech tool that the district is paying for, throw the Khan Academy question into that, and get the answer.
But I was thinking, “OK, if we had resources, what would a human do?” At some point, I should go walk up to the students and observe what they’re doing. When they get a question wrong, they might be embarrassed to ask me. But what if I went proactively to that student and said “Look, Billy, I saw that you just got that question wrong. Why don’t you and I work on that a little bit?” That’s essentially what we have evolved into. We piloted a new version last year, and now we’re rolling it out to millions of students around the country. When you get a question wrong, the AI says, “Hey, why don’t you work with me a little bit on this question?” And [the teacher can then say:] If you can show me that you really understand it, I’ll give you credit for it.
But you have to get the student to actually engage with the bot and want to learn.
Exactly. What you’re describing is not unique to AI. I hate to say it. Even putting all technology aside, there’s a lot of classrooms where kids are pretending to pay attention.
This is why we have been partnering with teachers and districts so closely – because we see that when teachers make it part of the assignments, that drives engagement for most students. The first version of Khanmigo was completely optional. Now, it’s actually in the student’s incentive to work with the AI because if the AI deems that you know it, now you’ll get credit for it.