In the past few months, many news articles have argued that students will use ChatGPT and other forms of AI to cheat on their assignments, without actually learning. This can undermine our existing education system. So, is there any way to alleviate this?
If we set up the right “guardrails” and do the right things, we can mitigate the damage of AI to education. I believe we are at the peak of using artificial intelligence, and it presents an unprecedented opportunity for positive transformation in the field of education. One approach we should take is to provide every student on Earth with an amazing AI personal tutor. It is crucial to provide every teacher on Earth with an incredible AI assistant. Offering a personal tutor to everyone is of utmost importance.
I want to share a snippet from a study by Benjamin Bloom in 1984, known as the “2 sigma problem” (a method that significantly improves educational efficiency, raising results by two standard deviations). Essentially, if students receive one-on-one tutoring, they achieve results that are two standard deviations better than the average. In simpler terms, one-on-one tutoring can turn an average student into an excellent one and elevate below-average students to above-average levels.
As shown in the graph, students who received one-on-one tutoring (on the far right) perform significantly better than those who didn’t.
Everything sounds great, but how do we actually implement one-on-one teaching? How can we make it accessible to everyone?
At Khan Academy, we have been approaching this for the past ten years, and we are only at the first step. I believe we are now at a turning point, and the future will see rapid acceleration.
