Does anyone here actually used Khanmigo and can share experience with it? It is still not available in my country. The whole thread is cesspool of AI bad, M$ bad, we are doomed.
I’ve generally gotten that vibe from most of these threads. No I haven’t used it, but I can say that ChatGPT 4.0 has been a huge helping me tutoring one of my children in math. We previously had college students tutoring him, and it turned out they were not very good. I have a fairly solid, although dated background, so it helps me refresh concepts and to find mistakes. I don’t let him use the AI directly though.
On the contrary I got the opposite vibe here of "wow this is great the future is here" vibes and am a bit confused. Do people really want to replace their human teacher for school children?
No I haven't used it. I don't like how it's being marketed though. I very much do not trust GPT 4 on the level where I am ready to have it educate the young.
Honestly, if there ever exists a web-focused LLM that's hyper-competent in media literacy, I'd be happy to delegate to it the job of teaching my kids. We don't expect the most of our teachers, nor do we effectively compensate them for such an important role, so I'm more inclined to trust an LLM that can capably sift through all the data online and teach from what it understands to be true.
Which essentially means the hallucination problem needs to be solved, which is a ways off.
>We don't expect the most of our teachers, nor do we effectively compensate them for such an important role,
If the government spent a fraction of the money tech is using to hype up LLMs on compensating teachers, we wouldnt have this mindset. We shouldn't have such thoughts of "we don't expect the most of our techaers" to begin with. Paying teachers more is a lot easier than solving hallucinations (as you probably saw, even Google is needing To manually edit gemini responses. The kings of automation).
The (sad) state of things in the world right now mean teacher will be seeing your kid almost as much as you will. Maybe even more. So we should be more particular in who that person is, and what lessons they bestow on students. You wouldn't let any ol stranger baby sit your kid, so why the same for teachers?
Teachers should be compensated as much as doctors and held to the same academic rigor, but then we'd run up against the rude reality that those of us who are well off tend to hate the idea of paying for such a feature e.g through taxes.
Grants got me through school, so I'm content being taxed up the nose. But I'm an outlier in my tax bracket for that opinion.
I'm another outlier too. If I had to choose between proper public school resources and privately schooling my child, I'd do the former 100%. Not everyone has the funding to do the latter, and public schooling shouldn't be a "punishment" for being poor (I was raised in public schools. Albeit my closest high school was a charter school, so there's quirks I admittedly dodged around ).
Sal Khan in the past has made his position clear that he supports austerity and private schools in the United States. This, if anything, is continuation of the con he always propelled. Edtech will replace teachers has been a talking point for a decade now. Too bad, there's no reliable evidence it improves learning outcomes. There is not any evidence for the latest "Microsoft figured out how to mine the essence of your child"-migo, either.
> Too bad, there's no reliable evidence it improves learning outcomes.
There is no reliable evidence that schools improve learning outcomes either. Maybe it's all just some kids being born with higher intelligence and curiosity. If they attend a school, the school takes the credit for their achievements. If they use Khan Academy (or whatever other website) instead, the website takes the credit.
>There is no reliable evidence that schools improve learning outcomes either.
There's decades of evidence, just compare school results (even the lowest quartile) to homeschooling. I'm sure there's tons of literature in that field.
Despite our repeated attempts to do so, teaching a full k-12 curriculum is in fact not something then vast majority of parents are ready to do. Even this tool isn't vying to replace teachers. If anything it wants to replace the teaching aides (aka tomorrow's teachers who are learning how to manage a classroom). It may be worse in that regard since its eyes are on the future without considering the human element of the future.
Sorry can someone explain to me why the teachers are needed at all in these subjects given the Khan Academy? A few years ago I saw Salman Khan give a talk about AI solving the Two Sigma problem, obviating the need for teachers:
People these days have seem to forgotten the human element in, well, everything these days.
I think it's easier to ask the collorary: do you trust your kid(s) to self learn K-12 material on their own time instead of going to school? Why or why not?
Yes, living in NYC with a my mother working as a schoool teacher for decades, I have come to realize that much of public school is just a glorified daycare center to keep children occupied while their parents work:
"Today, we announced a new partnership with Khan Academy to help turn the promise of AI in education into reality and increase access to innovation," began Microsoft's Tuesday post explaining it would make Khanmigo for Teachers (an AI-powered assistant) free to all educators in the US. But while Microsoft’s donation of Azure OpenAI Services may enable Khan Academy to offer their teacher tools to all teachers at no cost (Khanmigo previously cost teachers $4/month), Microsoft suggested it's still too cost prohibitive for even the world's most valuable company ($3.2T market cap) to pick up the monthly $4-a-head large language model (LLM) bill (public pricing, school pricing available by request) for the nation's 50+ million K-12 students.
To help schools fund AI efforts, Khan Academy has in the past provided 1:1 coaching to Indiana educators on how to snag $50K AI grants to pay for Khanmigo from their state. Teachers and students from Indiana's AI grant-winning Hobart High School, a Khanmigo pilot participant, were featured in Microsoft's AI in education media releases as well as Khan Academy co-founder Sal Khan's just-released book on AI in the classroom, which earned a thumbs-up from personal AI tutor evangelist Bill Gates.
Microsoft apparently hopes to solve the AI student tutor cost problem at scale with AI portion control for schoolchildren, explaining: "The companies [Microsoft and Khan Academy] will also explore how small language models (SLMs) such as Microsoft’s new Phi-3 family of models, which can perform well for simpler AI tasks and are more cost effective and easier to use than larger models, might help improve and scale AI tutoring tools. To that end, Khan Academy is collaborating with Microsoft to explore the development of new, open-source small language models based on Phi-3. The goal of the exploratory work is to enable state-of-the-art math tutoring capabilities in an affordable and scalable manner." Which aligns nicely with the goals of BillG and the Gates Foundation, which gave Khan Academy another $4.5M late last year "to continue the development and scale Khan Academy Districts to become the leading Math supplemental curriculum solution in the US."
They are not using user data for training. It wouldn't be very useful data anyway, as it's all explicitly from people who are learning and highly structured/not freeform due to the input constraints.
> In another layer of the partnership, Khan Academy will help Microsoft train an open source version of the latter's new small language model (SLM), Phi-3, with the goal of creating an AI math tutor for students
>To that end, Khan Academy will give Microsoft access to its math-related data, including math problems with step-by-step solutions. Data from Khan Academy users will not be part of the training data, the companies said.
I’m curious what teachers unions in the United States will think of this.
Presumably any successful outcomes with this will result in a culling, starting with aides and specialists. Add declining enrollment and you have strong incentive.
What does this do that’s so incredibly time-saving that you could cut specialists and aides?
One may hope it’d just help teachers be a ton more effective, or at least less over-worked. We’d need about twice as many to deliver really good education, but instead the pool of teachers is shrinking, so we’re gonna need tech just to tread water on education quality.
This is a misunderstanding of the purpose of teachers in the US. They exist to babysit students while the parents work, and any learning that gets done is a bonus. You can't replace babysitting with online classes.
Well I'm a teacher and I completely disagree. This if anything just levels the playing field by now giving poor kids tutors that rich families were paying for the whole time.
Having a new teaching tool is no substitution for teachers. Teachers are there to classroom manage, manage/coach students to learn, and baby sit.
The learning part is on the student, anyway. You can only assist them while they do it. And that mostly means breaking down stuff into lessons, taking care of the learning environment, answering questions as they arise, keep students from cutting each others hair off, and keep them busy until their parents come home from work (although I agree the last part is a bit of a cynical take).
1. To teach students whatever society deems at the time is general education. This is straightforward, don't think I need to elaborate here.
2. To widen the horizons of the youth on what's possible to do in the world. Ideally they'd inspire students and guide them towards their potential passions and interests. I'd never be here in tech if my 4th/5th grade teacher didn't inspire me into STEM. He worked at NASA before, he was my first exposure to Carl Sagan, he had all sorts of neat astronomical examples ready whenever the science unit came up. I didn't end up as an astronomer, but it did show me something I never would have looked into otherwise as a kid
3. A resource (or pointer to a resource) for students. Be it if the students are struggling in studies, are curious about particular topics, or want to try and plan a future pursuit. They should help students not only learn, but learn to learn.
4. Lastly, as a state guardian. A teacher should be one a child should feels safe confiding with should issues involving their parents, peers, or even other teaches arises. They should have some emotional intelligence to balance between what administration wants and what the student needs at that time. This also may include identifying mental or medical issues in students, and at least able to start the trail of investigation should there be more than lack of interest holding some students back.
If we compare notes we agree on #1, and you have maybe a small inkling of #3 and 4 for our definitions. The only separation from school and day care in your definition is the lessons, thought these days daycares also do that.
If society just wants government funded supervision while the parents engage in taxable labor for half their waking life (or more), we should just be honest about that.
Let me tell you as a parent I want no part of this AI garbage in the classroom. Its just an excuse to burn money the district does not have on software they dont need and that does not work.
Id way rather our school district bought an Xtramath account and taught the kids math facts in a simple way than waste money on AI that does not work or feeds misinformation.
Its because the problem you need to solve isnt that hard and already solved, it does not need to have a crazy complex novel solution. . All you have to do is present the problem and solution set. xtra math isnt some sort of complex system and it does not need to be, its stupid simple and does the thing its supposed to do.
Lol. Teachers are for babysitting. Learning is secondary. They'll be fine because we've decided the optimal babysitting ratio for teachers is somewhere between 30 and 50 students.
Sal Khan did an interview at the Commonwealth Club this past week where he stated that the reason for region locking is one of availability and cost. It seems like MSFT is only footing the bill for US use, rather than for the world, so there's still the matter of figuring out how to further reduce costs to make it cheap enough to give away everywhere.
I'm not sure why that implies that the paid plan is not available outside of the US.
I agree with both of these takes but want to add that the tool might not have been tested on all the languages spoken outside of the US. Can't be too careful with kids in the target audience.
Khan - an English loanword from Middle Mongolian meaning "ruler". Migo - in the works of H.P. Lovecraft, a fundamentally alien race that has mastered neuroscience.
You are thinking too much. Khan is just a name and a very very common one at that. I don’t see any reason to make this attempt at a blending of amigo into khan the founder, who has a good reputation, into something it’s not. If you say the blending just is not good nor is the idea to begin with, I am with you :)
It is derived from that meaning (ruler) but over time became less of a title and more of a last name used by Islamic people in areas like Afghanistan. Khan Academy is named for its founder, whose ancestry is from the Afghan region. The Mongol empire, where Khan was a title for rulers, did extend over the region of present day Afghanistan and the entire Middle East.
The people telling you about Sal Khan's name are being uncharitable, I think. I think you know that was not the intent behind the name, you're just pointing out that the coincidences add an extra layer of meaning to you. Which I think is perfectly valid.
I'm sorry, but this is just a terrible take. He told the story about how they were thinking of calling it "Khanpanion", but apparently that has a bad connotation in Latin America, so while they were brainstorming, someone mentioned "Khanmigo", as in the portmanteau of "Khan - amigo", and it stuck.
The availability of instant answers requires self discipline. Because it can be used to help make your learning process more efficient, but it can also turn into a crutch where the tool becomes the answer. Anybody who has ever tried to teach math to an unmotivated student would have faced the question, 'Why do we learn math when we could just use a calculator?'
It's quite interesting. All of these things, like the internet, that are or were supposed to 'democratize' learning, knowledge, and so on often end up doing the exact opposite - and just growing divides. The tiny percent of people that truly utilize these tools to their potential do become far more able than ever before, but most people don't. And the tool for self improvement instead just becomes a tool to get the answer, leaving them even worse off than before the tool.
> Anybody who has ever tried to teach math to an unmotivated student would have faced the question, 'Why do we learn math when we could just use a calculator?'
If it goes the same as your example for AI then soon people will doubt your knowledge on the grounds of not coming from the assured source. (The ai)
I generally agree with what the OP said: having an instant and correct answering machine available will remove most of the challenge of learning, leaving you completely unable to progress beyond the guided tours also called academic tests / certificates.
But the people talking about the calculator actually have a point, because the only reason to learn math is to understand the concept behind the formula, which can tell you why it works in certain scenarios and not in others. That's usually not what's taught in class however, instead they're made to run through formulas to get a "deeper understanding". And that's pointless beyond training to do exactly that: applying a formula at a pre-selected problem that has a correct answer. This doesn't really transfer to anything you'd do outside of school in any creative profession.
It's perfect for accounting and MBA roles though - even if they're not gonna be doing the calculation themselves, but they Guess identify which formal to apply, so ymmv
The reason you drill math in school is to be able to do it effortlessly and intuitively. It shows up absolutely everywhere in our lives, but people without a mathematical intuition would be largely blind to it. One of the most common examples of this is in probability. People are expected to make very important decisions on these things, but without any understanding of what it means.
For instance imagine something claims to make something bad 90% less likely to happen. People without a mathematical intuition would probably think that means means something goes from being pretty likely to happen to being very unlikely to happen. Of course it means nothing of the sort. Something that is 0.000001% to 0.0000001% is a 90% reduction in probability, but you've gone from absurdly unlikely to absurdly unlikely - for a negligible practical effect.
Or vice versa, if you're investing and think some event is only 2% likely to happen, then many would simply discard it. While failing to consider that such black swan events are arguably the single most important factors in finance. Because you earning a small amount 98% of the time and losing it all 2% of the time, then that means you're going to lose it all on any significant timeframe. See: "hedge" funds continuing to rip off the mathematically naive relative to index funds (which themselves may even provide insufficient security given contemporary issues).
Another would be something like the gambler's fallacy. You're at a roulette wheel and see it's turned up red 17 times in a row. Surely the odds of a black are now way better than 50%, right!?!? Of course not. Such logic is most easily demonstrated with gambling, but it shows up everywhere in real life as well in any field with randomness. For basic mathematics consider something like fertility rates. For those with a strong mathematical intuition fertility rates are absolutely terrifying. For those without such, a fertility rate of 1 and 2 seem pretty much the same - so what's the big deal?
And so on endlessly. Going through life without a mathematical intuition is entirely possible, as most people lack such. But it's akin to going through life colorblind. You simply aren't seeing things that others do, and ideally schools would work to prevent that so much as possible.
AI is a hammer, so corporate is swinging it at everything they can.
I agree that messing with child development is a dangerous game, and adding LLMs into the mix raises my eyebrows a bit (especially when kids may not have the common sense to not eat rocks or put glue on a pizza [0]). But in this case, the teacher is still in the loop (for now).
Assuming Microsoft keeps its word and does not transfer learning material back to their servers, can we be reasonably certain that this isn't another CAPTCHA reverse-training exercise?
I'd be interested to see how teachers can use this as a high-speed curation tool. If I were a teacher though, I'd be cautious that in delegating some of the work to a machine, the imaginative/synthesizing part of my brain is now going to go soft (and personally, I'd protect that aspect of my thinking at all costs).
Yeah bro, why have cars, we have legs! Why have teachers? We have books!
In reality, modern society has plenty, plenty, plenty of obstacles for every age group. Our priority should be eliminating them, not worrying about having too few of them.
The sheer mountain of existing knowledge that we have built up, is sufficient cause to use AI assisted teaching. Children in the future, will not only learn physics, chemistry, computers, history, language etc, but will also learn carpentry, cooking, personal finances etc, all helped out by the drastic efficiency leap from 1-1 personalized AI tutors.
Should probably throw our calculators away and go back to pen and paper too right? /s
This is a tool for teachers that is now free. Maybe I’m an idiot, but that sounds good to me. Give teachers all the things because we sure as shit aren’t paying them enough.
I’m totally on board making students do things by hand when they’re learning, but that isn’t what this is.
Is not what is it. It is all you can take in.
There is a ton of science around dedicated to cognitive development.
If you want to check out. I am sure in the near future, a lot of it will be excluded from the corporate datasets.
I really don't get this. Here, I assume the median intelligence of a reader is enough to connect the dots already. But sadly, critical thinking is met with the usual jerk knee reaction algorithm.
You're citing some blog copy that doesn't link to or correctly cite its sources that seems to be trying to sell shady psychological services.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if AI played a part in constructing this post. For example, what's up with the last paragraph about Nicholas Carr? It says "Dr Nicholas Carr", but he's a journalist who doesn't seem to have a doctorate degree and I cannot find any indication he refers himself as "Dr Nicholas Carr", did an AI hallucinate this? Also Carr has a bone to pick with the Internet, not AI, his book was written back in 2011.
