Sunday Pick: Can AI really teach your kids? with Leah Belsky | from WorkLife with Molly Graham

0:02Happy Sunday, Elise Hugh here. Today we're bringing you a Sunday pick where we share an episode of another podcast from TED, handpicked by us for you. Technology has been promising to revolutionize education for a long time. Online courses, smartphones, even the scramble to remote classes during COVID, each seemed, for a while, like it might finally transform what learning looks like. But mostly what we learned is that changing education is slower and harder than anyone wants it to be. So could AI finally be the unlock we've been looking for? In this recent episode of Work Life with Molly Graham, Molly sits down with Leah Belsky, who has spent nearly 20 years at the intersection of education and technology.

0:45Leah helped lead Coursera during the rise of online learning, and she's now the head of education at OpenAI. Together, they get into what AI really has to offer as a learning tool and where it falls short of the hype. Leah also draws on her experience as a parent of AI-curious kids with advice on how to coach children to use AI as a tool that empowers them, rather than one that gets in the way of actually learning. You can find Work Life with Molly Graham wherever you get your podcasts, and you can learn more about TED's podcasts at podcasts.ted.com. Now, on to the episode right after a break.

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4:03You know, what's really just struck me is I've been on this journey since starting an opening. I had to figure out like, what do students actually do with this technology? Because the narrative out there is that they cheat. But what you actually see is that so many students, when they learn how to use it, are looking at sort of problems in the world that they want to solve and building solutions and not waiting for permission and not looking to hire engineers or VCs or networks or any of these things you and I had to do and probably still do. They're just building. And that's what makes me so hopeful.

4:38One of the side effects in working in tech for a long time is that you get a little cynical about revolution. Or at least I do. We've been promising that technology was going to revolutionize education for a long time. Online learning, MOOCs, smartphones, then COVID forced everything remote. I feel like the main thing we've learned is that changing education is slower and harder than anyone wants it to be. So when people talk about AI transforming learning, my honest first reaction is, sure it is. That said, there is one thing that feels different to me this time. For the first time, it feels like we might actually be getting close to what EdTech has been promising for 20 years.

5:28A genuinely patient, personalized tutor. Not an app that adapts a quiz, something that can answer your question, notice when you're confused, explain it to you three different ways, and never get tired of you. And if that's true, it feels like it could change something fundamental. Not just in schools, but in the way we learn. And it makes me wonder what we'll gain and what we'll lose. My guest today is Leah Belsky. She has spent almost 20 years at the intersection of education and technology. She helped lead Coursera during the rise of online learning, and she's now the head of education at OpenAI.

6:09She's been close to every wave of this changes everything in ed tech, which means she knows exactly where the hype has fallen short. I want to know if she thinks this time is actually different. And if it is, what does it mean for us and for our kids? I'm Molly Graham, and this is Work Life, where we untangle the messy human side of work. Well, first I get to start with my favorite part, which is Leah Belsky. Welcome to Work Life. Thank you, Molly. It's great to be here. I know. I'm so happy to have you here. I've been really looking forward to this conversation because I get to learn all the things that you've been thinking about in the last year or two.

6:52know. Okay, so I just want to start, like kind of go back in time for you. You've been working at the intersection of education and technology for I think almost like 20 years. I want to know why you went into ed tech in the first place and what did you think was broken and what were you hoping to fix? So I actually never intentionally went into ed tech or education, though I guess you could say that's where I am now in a certain sense. But it actually started back in college. I went to Brown and I was an activist and I remember coming to campus. It was during the corporate reform movement and had this idea with a set of friends to build an online investment club because it was a time where lots of people were trying to figure out how do you get involved in companies and create change.

7:42And there was this older student who was a successful entrepreneur and he's like, why are you going to build a club? Let's actually create a company together. And I remember during that time, you know, we then went to the CS lab and we searched for an engineer and we found some creatives. And eventually I have these vivid memories of driving down Route 95 in Boston, going to pitch some of the largest VCs. And it just made a huge impression on me. And I was like, wow, I can't believe I as a young person can create and build something and sort of pitch some of the most powerful people in the world.

8:16And I think from there, I sort of got on this kick of, you know, this is what I want to do for my career. I want to enable as many people as possible to expand their capacity to be their best selves, to enable them to create and build, whether it be through coaching or technology or through education. And so that's kind of the, that's what motivates me to figure out how I can use technology and companies and organizations to help people be their best. But like, what did you learn from that early experience that you wish more people knew about sort of like what's possible when you use technology?

8:54It wasn't so much about technology, but what I realized is that if you can unlock people's confidence, unlock their connection, unlock their skills and unlock their ability to learn, you can do wonders. So to sort of continue the story for a little bit, I went to the World Bank there after college that was very focused on international development. And then eventually it was called by Coursera. Coursera, you know, some people know it, some people don't, but it's an online course platform that was one of the first to actually unlock access to some of the best university courses in the world. And it was there where I realized this sort of deep connection between this passion that I have of, you know, unlocking people's potential and education.

9:36Because this was a platform that would allow anyone anywhere to actually start learning. And it happened to be a tech platform, right? So it really, you know, the passion wasn't for tech. The passion was for unlocking learning and potential. The idea was basically access. Essentially, like, what was Coursera really trying to do for people? You know, before platforms like Coursera existed, if you wanted to learn from the best professors in the world, you needed to get into college. You needed to pass an admissions bar. You needed to pay a lot of money for expensive tuition. And, you know, then you would get access to all those resources.

10:14And what Coursera did is it unleashed the university. So whether you were sort of a high school kid in India or whether you were a community college student here in the U.S., you could learn Python from the best professors in Michigan or any university in the world. And that was transformative. I think today in a day where we have so much content on YouTube and there's a million online courses, that might seem sort of part of normal life. But until platforms like Coursera existed, if you wanted to learn with a university remotely, there were some organizations that would be sort of sending textbooks and test materials across boundaries.

10:48But there wasn't much in access to high quality education. Part of what I hear you talking about when you're talking about what Coursera was trying to do was like kind of like break down walls. You know that there were all these walls for people to access information and sort of like the best, right, the best professors. And that by breaking down those walls, you actually were creating more access to opportunity and unlocking people's potential, like you said. So when you worked there, what did you hope was going to change, like, about the world and about, I guess, education? and what actually changed?

11:31Look, I think the big hope with Coursera was that, you know, you would have people from all over the world who wouldn't necessarily need to pay for an expensive degree in order to get skills they needed to enter the workforce and that it would essentially sort of open access to jobs and create opportunity. And, you know, and some of that happened. But there were a couple of big problems. with the model. The first is that very few people actually completed courses. So a lot of people poked around and were excited, but didn't go very far. And then the second thing is that, you know, in much of our society stay and in much of hiring, there's still a big filter out there for employers when they look at candidates and, you know, the degree ends up being really important.

12:23But what I did take from the experience is that, you know, we spent a huge amount of time surveying our learners and really trying to understand what they were getting from Coursera. And the biggest thing that stood out is that Coursera, whether students did part of a course or all of a course, was unlocking people's confidence and giving them the sense, I can actually learn. I have a pathway to improve my life. I can learn IT skills and get a job at, you know, Google or wherever it might be. and that though they might not have been deeply learning skills, it was igniting their sense that they could learn something in the world and that in itself was powerful.

13:00That's cool. Yeah, like the idea that just showing yourself that you can start something probably gives you then the confidence to go, if a degree is standing between you and what you want, maybe go get that degree. What did that era teach you about what's hard about change or like what doesn't, you know, you sort of have all these ambitions when you're in these companies. And like, what did that era teach you about how education changes and how it doesn't? It was one, going after the idea of allowing individuals outside of the education system to chart their own internal journey, while also working with some of the best universities in the world and trying to change their business model.

13:42And so I think the biggest thing I was left with was how powerful a model that can be of change by allowing students to interact directly, but also trying to transform institutions. But also the other thing it left me with is just how challenging it is to drive change in universities and in the formal education system. Why do you think it's so hard? I think it's a number of factors. I mean, in the university system in particular, part of it goes to the origin of these institutions and what they're designed to do. They're designed to produce knowledge. They're designed to produce research. They're designed to sort of put that knowledge out in the world.

14:21And along their way, they're also designed to teach students. And it is hard to accomplish all those goals at once. They're designed in structures with many, many different incentives. If I were to sort of start a startup and said I wanted my startup to produce research, disseminate knowledge, and build world-class teaching, you as Molly would be like, no, no, no, no, no. What is your primary goal? Pick one. Let's get part of product market fit and go. And so that's part of the challenge, sort of the many goals that these institutions are trying to solve and the various incentives they have in their business models.

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17:03you've seen so many different phases like online learning and Coursera's phase and mobile learning and remote learning during COVID and now AI like so help me calibrate like how different does this moment actually feel than the other waves that you've lived and led through this moment is pretty darn different. You know, in the pathways of education technology, so I've worked in video when sort of video first came into the space. I worked at Coursera when sort of online learning blew open the doors of the university, and now we're focused on AI. And historically, when ed tech has come into educational institutions, it's been pretty tops down.

17:46So universities or schools get to sit there and think about, do we want to use this? Do we not want to use this? What's our policy? Should we train our teachers? And like slowly, methodically over sometimes years, you deploy a technology. AI is grassroots. It's driven by students. They were some of the earliest adopters. At the same time, you have these students who are using the tech and an education system that needs to figure out how and when and whether to engage. That's interesting. Is there really no other example of a bottoms-up technology? I mean, I believe you and I'm actually just trying to think.

18:26It makes sense, like meaning that it's truly student led. I don't think at this speed of change. YouTube, that was fast adoption, but it didn't really become sort of part of core infrastructure at the internet. Was it bottoms up led? No, I think it was sort of tops down technology prices by CIOs. So I think it's the combination of sort of being grassroots led, but also just the speed with was just washed. Yeah. And I remember when you first started at OpenAI, one of the things you said to me was like, I have never seen numbers like this, you know, and stuff that people at OpenAI take for granted.

19:02Like you're like, my mind is like, in terms of like the sheer size of the impact, you know. Part of the reason I went to OpenAI, there was two things. One, towards the end of my time at Coursera, Chat Ship Tea was launched. And our CEO, Jeff, who was super into it, was requiring all of us to chat with chat before we slacked him. And his requirement was that everything we said had to be smarter than what he could otherwise get out of chat. And we would have executive team meetings. He would have sort of chatty G on a computer as part of the executive team. And I was like, wow, this actually means I have sort of a thought partner and someone I can reason with to sort of be my best self in the room and around the table in a way that I didn't have before.

19:48But when I got to OpenAI, you know, I had thought Coursera was the largest learning platform in the world. And what I quickly saw was that over 20 % of all messages on ChatGPT were about learning. And so what I realized is that within two short years, this platform by OpenAI had become actually the largest platform for learning in the world, short of, say, YouTube or Google search. Give us, like, an order of magnitude. You're saying almost half the messages are a... Tell me the stats again, but also give me like the number. I'm just like curious, like that's insane. So I don't remember the exact numbers when I joined, but it was roughly.

20:28So now chat has, you know, I think it's something like 950 million weekly after users. But when I joined, the big aha that made me realize, wow, learning and education is like a big deal at this platform is that 40 % of all users were under 24. And 20 % of all messages sent on the platform were connected to learning and education in some form. Yeah. So it's a youth-driven platform, or at least it's not mature. Yeah, it was. Got it. And that there's a significant percentage of it that's being used for learning, or that that's a significant use case. So just for you specifically, can you remember the first time that you saw AI or Chatty G, as you've named him, do something in education or in learning that really made you stop and think like, oh, this is different?

21:32So I think my aha moment connected to the power of chat and learning was actually the summer after I left Coursera. I have a daughter and she's dyslexic. And for years I've seen her brother come down in the morning and read the newspaper. And I would always think to myself, like, how is this little girl going to actually access the world's knowledge? She just cannot read the paper. And we were traveling in Iceland that summer, and it was right when chat was released in voice mode. And I remember handing it to her and said, why don't you try this out? Maybe you can learn about the world through this.

22:06And I remember talking to chat CPT, and she was like, please and thank you. And she was like, hey, my mom wants me to learn about current events. Can you help me? and chat replied and said you know what are you interested in learning and she started saying she was interested in astronauts in space and the next thing i know chat was talking to her about the mars rover and the history of the space um program and it was just a complete lunge i realized you know i no longer had to worry about her ability to access the world's information and to sort of get that information in a way that was tailored to her interests and passions.

22:46And it blew me away. Yes. So it's interesting because, you know, the concept of like personalized learning, right? Like a tutor that knows you and understands you and can kind of like meet you where you are, like, which I think is like one of the things that people seem really hopeful about with AI. Like that concept is not new. There's obviously like people that have been working on it for a long time in education. And I would say it also hasn't made as much progress as people hoped it would in the last 10 years. Do you actually think this is the moment? And if so, what can happen now that literally couldn't happen before?

23:28I think AI does have potential to one day become that personalized tutor. And just to give a little context, the reason why people are so excited about that tutor concept is there's a study by this guy Benjamin Bloom. And what he found is that when you are trying to teach a topic and you compare the results of kids who are learning in the classroom to those who are learning with a tutor, the speed at which those who are learning with a one-on-one tutor is just miles ahead. There's a huge, huge difference. But historically, you know, obviously there's not the opportunity in this world today for everyone to have a real-life tutor.

24:03But that's been kind of the North Star, the golden goose of education, education technology, so to speak. The honest truth is it's much harder to achieve than I think I certainly thought when I joined OpenAI. And I think it's going to be a while before we get there. But explain that because like part of what you're describing was, and I think part of like even my experiences with ChatGPT and other chat interfaces is that it is like a personalized tutor. But I know that like part of the challenge in education isn't always like having the technology. It's actually getting people to use it, like, and particularly maybe also people in the classroom.

24:42Is that the barrier like that you're talking about? So I think what chat is and, you know, all the frontier models and platforms are great at doing is giving information in a personalized way or answering questions very specifically. But to really be a tutor and effective sort of virtual tutor, you need to do something more. You actually need to interact with a person in a way that makes them think, makes them reflect, makes them apply information to other contexts. And if you think about, like, I'm sure you've had tutors for your kids or maybe they're younger. You know, a tutor that works for their kids, they understand what the goals are that your student wants to achieve.

25:21They understand sort of what they know and where they need to go. And it's that whole combination of interacting in a way that doesn't just give information in a personalized way, doesn't just give answers, but actually pushes someone's brain to experience friction, to reflect, to remember, to process. that allows people to learn. And that's the problem. Right now, these models are great. They can respond like a tutor. They can respond in a personalized way. But we haven't yet figured out how AI can really unlock the ability to sort of improve people's cognition, their memory, their ability to reflect.

25:59And that's the journey. That's interesting. Because like one of my questions was like, what is school for then? But I think you're, well, I think you're kind of answering that, but what would you say? What is school for if we have access to all this stuff? So there are many theories now on why we're not yet managing to see the results of the sort of same tutoring results we saw of in-person tutoring and the AI tutors, and I sort of share with you a couple of my theories. But part of what the gap is, is that chat-GPD is not actually great at motivating you, at holding you accountable, at bringing you in contact with other humans who can sort of deeply understand who you are and ignite your curiosity and desire to learn.

26:44And so part of what school does is it gives you this container, this structure for accountability, for motivation, for sort of addressing the other things that make you want to learn. It's a narrow definition of school, but I think that's part of why we see that gap. Okay, man, I have some directions we could go with this. I do want to ask you this question, though, because I feel like there's like a lot of, you know, chatter in the world around both like basically this being a tool that lets people like cheat or what, you know, almost like it's making people dumber, you know? And it's like so interesting where you're like, wait a minute, we just gave people this like incredible piece of technology that like gives them all this access to information, but there is a fear, and I have no idea if it's grounded or not, that it's so easy, right?

27:35It's like the calculator means you don't have to do math in your head, so we all got dumber, which I, by the way, can't do math in my head. I blame the calculator. Like what are you seeing? How do you actually think about that relative to this idea of the power of the tool versus sort of like how it's being used? So we see chat used in all sorts of ways. It's just a tool. And some of those ways, I think, help people become their best selves, and some of them are diminishing. But let's go back to the calculator example that you just gave. My daughter learned her math facts and is now doing long division.

28:11And she has cried tears at the kitchen table trying to learn long division. If I were to hand her that calculator as a tool while she was learning long division, there is no way she would have learned it. But the hope is that once she learns long division and has that down, later in her career, in math, she could use that calculator to actually enable herself to do higher order math. And I think chat is the same way. If you give kid, you know, a phone and chat should be tea and they're doing their homework and what they start to do is take a picture of their homework and say, hey, chat, help me and then write the answer down, it may actually feel like learning to them.

28:47It's not that they're trying to cheat. It may feel like learning. But at the end of the day, it's actually taking away that sort of friction and those tears and that struggle that are so important to learning. And I think that's what people are concerned about. The challenge we have right now is that fear and that concern about the impact of AI and learning is also making many people try to hang back. And many schools, you know, they're not wanting to engage, teachers not wanting to engage. And my view is that, like, we as an education system need to lean in. We have an opportunity to actually help students understand what it means to learn and to guide them to use these tools in a way that are productive and helpful.

29:29And I think, you know, we didn't do that with social media since it wasn't an education tool. We're like, you know what, parents just need to deal with that. But AI is different. And so part of what I'm hoping is that even while we're on this journey to figure out what is the highest, best use of AI now, we, you know, within the education system, start learning and understanding the technology and guiding students. I mean, if you believe this is a tool that's always going to be around, you don't do kids any favors if you try to educate them in a world where you pretend it genuinely doesn't exist.

30:01I mean, I think that's like what I hear you saying is like the struggle is valuable, right? Like that the manual learning and the reason why we all learn, even though there was spell check, we still learned how to spell. And even though there was Excel, we still learned how to do calculations and things like that. like there is something really valuable that happens in your brain when you don't get to use a tool. And part of what I feel like schools are struggling with is that tension, right? Like how and where should this tool be part of education? Yeah? Totally. That is a struggle. Okay. So what do you...

30:38What's my point of view on it? Well, yeah, I'm curious. Like, let's say I am one of those people or even a parent, But certainly an educator that's like, you know, kind of like, get this out of here. I want to do things as if it doesn't exist or ban it or whatever. Like, what do you think they're getting wrong? So maybe I can sort of give the answer by talking about my own kid. You know, two years ago when I joined OpenAI, I was very focused on helping my son learn how to use AI in a way that was productive. So I was off in California. He was home struggling with his homework. And I said, can I actually train him to use chat as a coach or a tutor and see how that goes?

31:25I would say fast forward two years, I'm less focused on that. And I'm more focused on how can he use AI to actually create and build. And so to tell you a quick story, you know, a week ago, my kids want to start a fidget sales business. They want to, like, make these little 3D printed fidgets and sell them at farmer's markets and online. And so we sat down and I said, let's forget the sort of learning tutoring thing for a minute. But AI has all these coding tools now and all these tools for building. Let's sit down and let's see if we can teach you to build a website. and it was just a big unlock for him.

32:04And he started using AI and he started coding this website and now he's diving deep and creating things. And that experience with him of AI sort of giving him this sense of agency that he can create and build, that really shifted how I think about the value of this technology, particularly now while kind of this big learning quest is on a longer journey. Yeah, that's interesting. Well, first of all, what happened to him when he learned he had all this agency? He has just become a super motivated kid who wants to dive deep and figure out what he can build and create in the world. We sent him to an AI camp because I'm now sort of using him as a guinea pig.

32:52He feels like he can build and create. And so just to take that idea a step further, to me, that's what we need to bring into education. We need to bring AI into education in a very focused way where we teach students how to build and create and solve problems and build prototypes in a way that's pretty darn focused. And I think it's going to be important. It's very different from what kids study in school today. But AI just has this huge potential to unlock a sense of agency and opportunity. And that's now where I would say I'm focused.

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35:28Part of what I hear you saying, which was actually different than what I thought you were going to say, is that this idea of like a tutor or it being a universal teacher is feeling far away. Like, can you just tell me a little more about that? Like, why is it farther away? It's farther away because I think we haven't yet figured out how to enable people to respond to an AI and the way they respond to teachers. Teachers motivate. They hold people accountable. They bring students together in community. They understand a student's context, their emotional context, their state of mind, what they know.

36:10And AI just doesn't do that. It's not there. It can't perform the human parts that make people excited to learn with a teacher or a tutor. Do you think it'll ever be able to solve that? I think that we will end up in a world where, yes, AI can tutor much more effectively than it can now today. But I don't think that will ever be a replacement for the presence of a human actually sitting there and bringing together a group of students and motivating them to learn. Yeah. So we'll get a lot better, but I don't think it'll ever be a replacement for human tutors or teachers. Interesting. So it'll be a human-robot companionship, at least for as far as you can see, which, by the way, is like a theme that's coming out.

36:58I've done a few of these, and it's just so interesting, all the news stories that are out there about every job in the world going away and every human being replaced and everybody that's at the edge of AI is saying that's not what we're seeing. And that's actually not the reality that seems to be coming, that this is about a change, for sure, seems like, but that it continues to be about there's a set of things that only humans can do. I agree with that. What are some of the coolest things that you've seen that make you so excited about the future of this technology? So about a couple weeks ago, we pulled together a group of students.

37:46We called them sort of Chatshuby T Futures students. And they were just students from all over the U.S. who were building with AI. And they were doing amazing things. One of the students I met is using models. He's trying to study solutions to treatments for bipolar disorder. And he is using LLMs to look at all the available drugs on the market and figure out what drugs might be out there that aren't currently being used for mental health reasons that could now be applied to address mental health. Another student, she and her friends would sit in the cafeteria and play Wordle together, but one of their friends was blind.

38:23And so she decided that she would actually build a version of Wordle that a student who's blind could play. And from there, she's launched a company to actually build educational games for students who have all sorts of disabilities. And more basic things, too. You know, there's a student from Penn who joined us this summer, and he's been running an AI club at Penn. And the first thing the team did, he invited a bunch of non-technical students, and they figured out a solution to actually take the unused food from all the cafeterias and bring them to food banks. And so, you know, what's really just struck me is I've been on this journey since starting in OpenAI to figure out, like, what do students actually do with this technology?

39:06Because the narrative out there is that they cheat. But what you actually see is that so many students, when they learn how to use it, are looking at sort of problems in the world that they want to solve and building solutions and not waiting for permission and not looking to hire engineers or VCs or networks or any of these things you and I had to do and probably still do. They're just building. and that's what makes me so hopeful. Yeah, that's cool. Well, like, just do me a favor and talk about that broader negative narrative, like the cheating narrative. Like I, and I think it's both that there's like a cheating narrative and there's also sort of a, like, I don't know, like it's, like I said, it's kind of making people dumber.

39:51It's making certain things so easy. How do you actually address that in the actual work that you're doing? And what do you think is actually real about that? Because obviously, anytime you're working on a huge platform, people are going to write all sorts of things about it. And so for someone, I have no idea. What is real? You see all these stories and I'm like, is this actually a big problem? And is it something that you all are tackling from the technology side? Or do you actually think it really is not sort of like that the good outweighs the bad, I guess? I think it is a problem. And I think it needs to address from a human side, from the student side and on the tech side.

40:32And before I go into it, the thing to know is that the people who are most concerned about brain rot and cheating and the impacts of AI on sort of cognition and brain development are students themselves. Students want to thrive. They want to learn. They want to get great jobs. But we've done a couple of things. The first, we built out a product called Study Mode. So when I first joined, we sat back and we said, well, if ChatGPT is giving too many people easy answers, how do we actually build an experience in the product that would behave more like a tutor and wouldn't just give answers, but would prompt students to reflect and articulate what they know and to dive deeper?

41:12And we worked with hundreds of teachers and learning scientists and built this experience called Study Mode and saw that lots of students enter this experience and they see it as a way to have chat help them through ideas and help them through our homework in a way that's different from just give me the answer. But the other thing we're doing is just starting to work very, very deeply with teachers, cakewell teachers, professors, because I think part of what needs to happen in society is we need to have adults guide students on how to use this technology in a way that's sort of productive and to help students actually understand themselves.

41:53You know, as you said, you were like, wait, I thought that's learning. If your daughter's getting personalized information, isn't that learning? And so sometimes people are not learning, but they don't realize. They're like, oh, I'm learning. I'm getting personalized information. So we need to educate students on what does it mean to learn? How do you learn? What is learning and what feels like learning? And bring that into the classroom as well. So it's a combination. Yeah, I think that idea of like what is actual learning and what feels like learning feels like a really big tension in your work to me and in the product.

42:26Because I think you genuinely do think you're learning when you're getting all this information. But I think what you're saying is no, you're not. You're not. Yeah. So out of curiosity, I think the calculator example has always been one for me, probably because of the era I was raised in, where I was not allowed to use a calculator for a long time. And then I got one in calculus and algebra, maybe. But by the way, I still can't do math in my head. So do you have like a strong perspective about what role these tools end up having in the classroom? Like, how do we create good hardware you can't use them and you have to go through all that tiers, to your point, all the tiers and struggle?

43:23And where AI might have a role in the actual sort of like institutions of learning? So one thing that's very clear is that AI can be incredibly helpful to both faculty and teachers. Teachers are constantly doing a huge amount of administrative work from grading to compiling assessments to sort of preparing new materials. And what you find is that when teachers are actively using AI, they can save like six, seven hours a week spending less time in administration and actually more time in the classroom with students. that's one. I think teaching students in the classroom how to actually build and create with AI is both a skill and a mindset that's going to be very important for the future.

44:12You know, in most schools today, the idea of like entrepreneurship or making or coding, it's a sideshow in education. It's something that, you know, students who have access to resources or an extracurricular club, they can do. And part of that is because the tools for building have been so scarce. But now that they're not, I'm hopeful that every student in high school can go through this experience that my son went to of identifying a problem and building a prototype and picking a problem, building a prototype and doing that again and again. So that's a very clear use. And then I think we're honestly on a journey to discover it.

44:47I'm not of the view that, you know, students should just sit there with chat open all day and in the classroom and deploying AI into schools is what that means. I think if we deploy in the classroom, we need to do it in a way that's really sort of purpose-built and intentional. It's so interesting because to the conversation around big narratives and all the hype and good and bad, you're painting actually a pretty, narrow is not the right word, but purpose-built. Let's use your words. Purpose-built vision, which is just like, this is a tool. And like, it's like the calculator, but like the most powerful calculator in the world.

45:33Like it is a tool to be used thoughtfully and carefully, but it is not, it's maybe an accelerant and a jet pack in some cases, but it is a tool at the end of the day, not the future of learning and taking over all schools and things like that. For sure. That's my view. And look, but what I'm trying to do is sort of dual track. You know, we're working with researchers and countries all around the world who are working with us to figure out how do we advance chat and other tools to make them as good as possible for learning. You talked about anxiety, you know, and you talked about students. And I feel like, you know, my teenage friends, let alone my young friends that are in college, are sort of like, will there be jobs, you know?

46:24And what does the future look like for me? I think partially, obviously, because of the fear-based narratives that are out there, you know? And you've got a 13-year-old. So, like, what do you – well, if you were 20 today, like, what would you be focusing on and what would you ignore? You know, I'm asked this question when I go on. I bet. What are the skills that my kids would learn? What do we need to teach kids? And I always reframe the question. I think another way of asking that question is, what do we want humans to be able to do in a world where intelligence is infinitely accessible? And I think what we want our students to do is to be able to sort of possess those very best human skills that we talked about when we talked about the power of teachers and the power of tutors.

47:19We want them to be able to interact and show emotional intelligence and to lead and to judge and to look at the world and perceive it. And then beyond that, what I want for my kid is a sense of empowerment. And none of us know what the jobs of the future will look like. And there may be a lot of them or there may be a little of them. But what I most hope is that he will go out into the world and he'll be able to identify problems in the company that he joins. And if there's not a great company to join, then he will build his own. So I think it's that combination of the ability to go from problem to prototype and sort of solve challenges and build and create, plus sort of deep human skills that allow you to drive powerful relationships and impact with other people.

48:03That resonates. And so you got a 13-year-old. How is this affecting your parenting? Like, what are you doing? How do you actually kind of think about where the struggle, like, guide where the struggle is important and not? Or are you leaving that up to the school? So the school that we are at, one thing I really admire it is very clear with students on when they want you to use technology and when they don't. Part of the challenge is that many schools aren't sort of talking about AI and tech explicitly, and so they're leaving it up to students to decide. And so, you know, he knows from his school that when he writes, and writing is hard, it's hard for students to write, that he's not allowed to use technology.

48:46And so, you know, part of what I've done is I've tried to reinforce for him when school gets hard or when homework gets hard, like that struggle is where you're learning. So don't pull out the tech and don't pull out chat. And honestly, I may have scared the pants off of him. But, you know, I see how easy it would be when he struggles to just pull out chat. But I think what's been powerful is that that self-awareness, in addition to the school policy, has helped him use chat, at least for now, in ways that are pretty intentional. And that's what I hope, that he can use it as a tool for a purpose when it will help him grow and learn.

49:30It's actually sort of a funny, simple rule because it is like the moment when we reach for tools, when your brain is like, this is hard, you know? And it's like, I think one of the really salient points you're making is just like that struggle is where you learn. And like by short circuiting it, you in some cases are like almost cheating yourself, you know, from what comes out the other side of that learning. I wanted to say to you that as you've been talking, I'm like, it's like almost like we need a different word. It's like information absorption versus like learning. But I think it really does beg that question of like, what is learning?

50:08Do you know what I mean? And I feel like that's what I hear you struggling with a little bit, you know? I would, you know, one way to think about it is this. I mentioned that we work very different, very closely with the country of Estonia. And I recently sat down with their minister of education. And, you know, the way she framed it is this. She's like, there's sort of different types of learning. There are sort of lower cognitive processes, learning a fact, learning a piece of information, spitting that fact back. And then there are sort of higher order things that we want our students to be able to do specifically in an AI world.

50:41We want them to be able to reflect and create and analyze. And so, you know, part of what we're in the process of doing is figuring out what are those sort of lower orders, pushing information back and forth things that right now is a lot of what we ask kids to do in school. And if we have them do it with AI, they're not going to be able to do it. And what are those sort of deeper ways of thinking and higher order, higher ways of processing information that we want students to go into? And I think over time, what we'll start doing as a society is getting more awareness of what is learning, how does the brain work, and sort of what are the types of minds and the types of behaviors we want kids to cultivate.

51:21So it is a messy space. I mean, I feel like I understand things in a different way just from this conversation in terms of like what the complexity of what's going on is. because in some ways I think, you know, I mean, if you think about what education was 40 years ago, it was like, memorize this textbook, you know what I mean? And like that literally was information absorption, you know? And it sounds like part of what's going on for you or what you're in the middle of is like a really deep reflection on the value of structured learning and or education or whatever the right words are, which I think, you know, probably part of the challenge going on in the world is just that this is challenging people to have to ask that question, you know?

52:11It's challenging to both figure out how the student technology fits into our education system at the same time that we're trying to figure out what do schools need to accomplish in a world where AI exists and intelligence is infinite. And, you know, These are two very different questions and we're having to work it all out at the same time. I love it. Leah, this was so interesting. It's such a complicated conversation and you're grappling with things that no one really has answers for. But you're also not saying we have the answers. You're saying we're trying to figure it out too. Yeah. I think that that's true.

52:56It's complicated. And again, I wish more of the industry and the news media would engage directly with the students and understand like, what is it that they see unlocking for them and what opportunities is it creating? Because I think if we get clearer on, you know, what problems is it solving? What does it allow them to create and build? We will move away from like the fear and the worry and the sense that AI is going to, you know, collapse all these things. and really dive deep into this problem of like, what can AI open up for us? I love it. Leah, thank you so much. I really appreciate this.

53:36And I feel like I'm going to be thinking about this as I think about my kids too. I like your point about the struggle. Like the struggle is the point. How do you help them learn that? It's not easy when you see those pairs, but it is important. But Molly, thank you so much for inviting me and I would say bringing the conversation down to earth and asking hard questions. I appreciate the way you engage in the world. Okay, that was such an interesting conversation with Leah. I honestly didn't go the direction I thought it was going to. I feel like I learned a lot from that, but I guess just because of maybe the narratives in the press and I thought we were going to hear a lot more about like AI replacing everything in education.

54:26And that's really not what I heard. What I heard was like a deep conversation and struggle to some extent around what is learning. And what is school for? which I feel like talking to Leah just really made it clear that just having access to information or a sort of infinitely patient friend that has a lot of the world's knowledge inside of it doesn't in and of itself create learning. You know, anybody that's been through a deep learning experience knows that feeling of like it getting hard and making it to the other side of that and that embedding itself in your brain in a different way. But the most important thing, you know, was just a really direct message that this is a tool.

55:27You know, so many of the conversations happening out in the world are based in this fear-based language that, like, AI is replacing everything and AI is going to be everything to everyone and all jobs are going away. I don't know. There's going to be no use for humans anymore. and you know a lot of what I heard in this conversation was there are some things that AI is not going to be able to do anytime soon that humans are really important for and I guess the other side of that that I heard was like it's a tool that's not going away it's not only a tool that's not going away but every single kid that has access to it is using it and wants to use it and wants to help it power their learning or power their lives, but they're struggling with how to use that tool.

56:18You know, for all of us, whether you're a parent or just someone that's thinking through this yourself, the question is, what should our relationship with it be, right? What should our kids' relationship with it be? How do we want this tool to be a part of our lives and a part of our learning? I don't think we have the answer, but it sure has left me with a lot to think about. I hope you found that as interesting as I did. All right. I'll talk to you all next week. Work Life is a production of Ted and Pushkin Industries. This episode was produced by Isaac Carter and Leah Rose. Banban Chang is our story editor.

57:00Mixing by Hansdale Shi. Ted's executive producer is Daniela Balarezo. Constanza Gallardo is the executive producer for Pushkin. Special thanks to Roxanne Hilash, Valentina Bohanini, Laini Lott, Tansika Sungmanivong, and Ashley Murphy. If you like the show and want more, come join the discussion on my Substack Lessons. I'm Molly Graham. Thanks for listening.

57:32This episode is sponsored by Ashby. Every talk you hear on this show started as an idea, and every idea that actually gets built needs a team. Today's sponsor, Ashby, is the software that supports hiring for those ambitious teams. Ashby is the all-in-one recruiting platform used by the teams at Lovable, Notion, Plaid, and Clay. If you wish that AI could help you move faster through scheduling and scorecards, that you could find that silver medalist candidate from 18 months ago in a few seconds, or that you had better visibility into the state of your candidate pipeline, Ashby is for you. See why over 80 % of Forbes' top AI companies choose Ashby to hire the best talent.

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