Allie Castaneda
Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, speaks about the future of AI in education as part of the AI Live series on Nov. 15, 2024.
Founder of free education platform Khan Academy expressed hope for the future of AI and its ability to revolutionize education at UT’s AI Live event on Nov. 15.
Company CEO Sal Khan participated in the panel “Sal Khan Live at UT: How AI Will Save Education” and highlighted the features of Khanmigo, an AI-powered personal tutor and teaching assistant developed by Khan Academy. He discussed how Khanmigo can enhance education and addressed concerns about the role of AI in the classroom.
“There are things that (AI) could do to go well beyond a traditional tutor,” Khan said during the panel.
Khan touched on some educators’ reluctance to embrace AI over the worry of students potentially using it to cheat.
“When I talk to educators, especially in higher education, (essay cheating is) the biggest worry,” Khan said.
Khan recalled similar concerns he and the Khan Academy team had over misuse during the early days of integrating AI. Khan said he remembered determining that developers should embrace the risks by turning them into features that mitigate misuse rather than being fearful of AI.
Khanmigo’s writing coach feature characterizes Khan Academy’s approach to AI integration, Khan said. He explained the writing coach can assist students through the writing process and submits student interaction data to educators. This includes being able to tell whether a student copied and pasted information, and the timestamps of when they worked on different parts of assignments.
Khanmigo can also assist teachers with their lesson plans and generate in-class exercises to aid learning. He said he expects the AI model to help teachers grade papers in the next two to three years. However, he said it doesn’t diminish the need for real people teaching in classrooms.
“I don’t think there’s a replacement for in-person,” Khan said. “It’s (liberating) to be in-person.”
Khan said although he thinks AI may lead to some job replacements, jobs with a human element, such as teaching, will be safe.
“(AI) will allow teachers to anchor more in what I think they got in the job for,” Khan said. “Less time lesson planning, less time grading papers and more time connecting with students, which I think is a great fit for everyone.”