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Education

Khan Academy Piloting a Version of GPT Called Khanmigo (fastcompany.com) 36

Sal Khan, founder and CEO of online learning nonprofit Khan Academy, wants to turn GPT into a tutor. From a report: Khan Academy is testing a carefully managed version of OpenAI's GPT that can help guide students in their studies, not enable them to cheat. A pilot is currently running with a handful of schools and districts to test the software, and Khan hopes to open a wider beta this summer. "I strive to be at the cutting edge of how AI, especially large language models, can be integrated to actually solve real problems in education," Khan says.

Many students are already using ChatGPT and other generative AI tools to assist with their homework -- sometimes against their teachers' wishes. Khan Academy's approach stands out because it's designed to answer students' questions without giving away the answers, and to integrate with the organization's existing videos and exercises. In a demonstration for Fast Company, Khan showed how the chatbot, dubbed Khanmigo, can guide students through math problems, help debug code, serve as a debate partner, and even engage in conversation in the voices of literary characters like Hamlet and Jay Gatsby. The project began last June, when Khan received an introductory email from Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI's CEO and president, respectively. The two offered a private demo of the AI software, and Khan was impressed with the program's ability to answer questions intelligently about various academic materials.

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Khan Academy Piloting a Version of GPT Called Khanmigo

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  • I'm going to launch my own GPT for the public, fund it with a minimal usage fee and will guarantee users that it will hallucinate all sorts of stupid shit.

    Gpt as a tutor? Wtf? And teach students god knows what fantasy shit and the student by definition don't know they could be getting taught incorrect information?

    At least when my professors knew they were bullshitting or talking about things that were still very unknown such as neuroanatomy they told us this was best known but not certain information so w

    • by taustin ( 171655 )

      I'm going to launch my own GPT for the public, fund it with a minimal usage fee and will guarantee users that it will hallucinate all sorts of stupid shit.

      Just submit the prompt to a randomly chosen search engine, and have it return the top result.

      That will look just like the present AI chatbots.

    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      Does TutorGPT inform students when it's lying to them?

      No, it won't. That isn't something a model like this can do.

      Gpt as a tutor? Wtf?

      This is doomed to end in failure. Though it's worth pointing out that while you can get 'good' results out of these things if you have a fairly narrow focus, all that does is give you false confidence. Even if they could manage 99% accuracy, which is unlikely, that's still a lot of failure and a lot of deeply confused students.

      • Yes, exactly. People don't understand that a 1% failure rate in this situation is fucking horrible. During an hour long lecture how many random factoids does a teacher tell students in any random subject? A lot. Let's say it's 2 per minute and class is 50 minutes. That's one full on random ass hallucination every single class session on average. Crazy shit to put that in front of students with no filter or expert around to correct the computer.

    • Mmmm, you just gave me an idea. Make an hallucinating GPT. Let it produce texts, images, songs... . Publish its works under the pseudonym Aiko. Bet it would become a respected artist.
    • Probably not an effective tutor in the sense that you & I might think of tutoring but it can be a very useful tool both in the classroom & for preparing instructional materials. I expect that they will find some use-case scenarios where ChatGPT can help well without the intervention of a skilled tutor/teacher. Of course, the devil's in the detail.
      • I'm in favor of people who understand the reasonable use of gpt as a tool. I agree with you on that use as a tool in the hands of an expert.

        But putting it in front of naive users who will automatically believe anything it says "because the computer said so" is nuts.

    • by kmoser ( 1469707 )
      Yeah, students should stick with current sources of research like Google, which provides 100% accurate results.
      • Google gives an effectively infinite list of links which requires the reader to pick and choose and do further research.

        Gpt says, "here's the truth and you know it's true because I'm your tutor".

        You can see the difference.

        • by kmoser ( 1469707 )

          Google gives an effectively infinite list of links which requires the reader to pick and choose and do further research.

          You know as well as I do that everybody always clicks one of the top three links.

          Gpt says, "here's the truth and you know it's true because I'm your tutor".

          Easy: include a disclaimer in the beginning that states it's subject to error, caveat emptor.

          • So you mean Google users have multiple choices and use discernment to choose an answer that makes sense to them and sees that there are zillions more links if they want to dig in as opposed to a computer authoritatively declaring it's hallucinations to be true.

            But oh yeah we can just slap a label in it like "smoking is dangerous" and people will sto; smoking, I mean people will not believe their hallucination spewing computer tutor.

            Once you tell people the computer can lie what's the point of having it teac

  • I for one welcome our new AI overlords. I do not like public school teachers and I'll be only too happy to see them hit the street and find another job. AI isn't going to touch or beat on the kids and they might actually learn something.
    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      I do not like public school teachers

      Poor student or are you one of those crackpots that think 'woke' teachers are picking out kid's genders?

      they might actually learn something.

      Not from an LLM. They can't even do basic arithmetic.

      • Poor student or are you one of those crackpots that think 'woke' teachers are picking out kid's genders?

        Well, disagree with sex-ed for 1-3 grades, if that is your concern, but that's not where I was coming from. I do not like public school teachers because I grew up in Texas where the teachers are empowered to beat you up. They used "paddles" (one of which was a shaved-flat baseball bat) on me more than 30 times between grades 2-7. I not only suffered physical abuse, but they were utterly terrible to me in other ways also. I cannot count the number of verbal personal attacks and insults I received (from teach

        • by narcc ( 412956 )

          Your experience is not typical. At least, not outside backward southern states. Your problem might not be with teaches so much as it is with Texans.

          Well, disagree with sex-ed for 1-3 grades

          That's probably because you don't know what comprehensive sex ed is all about [npr.org]. Sex ed at that age is very important. It includes things like 'good touch bad touch', personal boundaries, and correct names of body parts. That last one can be extremely important in cases of sexual abuse.

          I dunno about that

          It's true. Models like ChatGPT really can't do simple arithmetic. This is

          • Your experience is not typical.

            Funny, I've met a lot of others who had similar experiences. So, *shrug* BULLSHIT.

            That's probably because you don't know what comprehensive sex ed is all about [npr.org].

            Possibly. I remain VERY suspicious of government sex education of kids under 9 years old. Perhaps it's benign or perhaps it's completely politically motivated tripe. Either way, I don't care very much. That is a curriculum issue and I'd probably be satisfied with whatever result they arrive at. I just don't want it taught by a "live" teacher. Also great job using the commies at NPR to "prove" anything for you. Fuck NPR (and

        • hmmmm I wonder what YOU DID to earn such treatment? Not the sexual abuse stuff, the beatings. usually a teacher who was beating a student (back in my day) had to justify this to the assistant pinciple, and the PARENTS had to sign a document allowing it... but that was back in the 60's in Boston, MA.
          • hmmmm I wonder what YOU DID to earn such treatment?

            In grades 1-3 I didn't do anything. I was just an innocent kid. Pretty easy to manage. After that, I was rebellious and difficult. Academically, started off doing extremely poor. I technically failed 5th grade (but was passed anyway). I could always read at grade level because I was a voracious reader after overcoming mild dyslexia. I was disrespectful of teachers who were cruel or excessively incompetent, but respectful to kind or the 4 of about 80 teachers I had (I attended many different schools in both

        • If you had a good experience in school, I'm happy for you. Just don't assume everyone else did.

          I was homeschooled because of bullying that the school failed to do anything about. Incidentally, I ended up a secondary math teacher with a math degree (and by the end of this summer, an MS in mathematics). I can tell you something from the "other side." First, some districts are basically little hell holes that can't keep staff. I could talk your ear off about this, but it sounds like you ended up at one of "those" districts. While it may feel good to stick-it-to-em about pay, those districts are hell hol

          • If the pay were competitive, it'd be easier to replace ineffective staff.

            Fundamentally, I agree with you. The problem is that when they do get larger budgets, very large portions are siphoned off to deal with pension payments for retirees. I'd rather see funding-follows-students, charter schools, private schools, and anything that breaks up public schools and wrecks the power of the teachers unions over schools and over election operations. I don't think they would be underfunded if they weren't carrying around the obligations of folks who made themselves phat retirement promise

    • Why do 'Muricans hate teachers so much? They vilify them & pay & treat them like shit. You might want to consider giving them the support & resources they need to educate the generations who are going to be looking after us, in charge of us, paying our pensions, & who'll have to sort out the multitude of messes we've created in the world.
      • Why do 'Muricans hate teachers so much?

        You are right. I hate them passionately. Here are my reasons. 1. They insulted/humiliated me often, beat me up ("corporal punishment" ... with a shaved down baseball bat?! that's just a straight up beating), and sexually assaulted me as a kid. Twice. 2. They absolute sucked at their jobs. They never knew WTF they were teaching/doing. The classes were so disrupted with discipline problems I rarely got to ask questions or learn a damn thing. 3. They are people who didn't work hard enough in college, then pani

  • "Aaaahhh, my young friend. Do you know the Klingon proverb which tells us education is a dish that is best served cold? AI is very cold..."
  • Shame on /. for posting a star trek story on star wars day
  • That seems like a domain that ChatGPT could handle quite well. It would need a lot of restrictions, but a focused domain is a lot more manageable. A ChatGPT instructor in, say, Physics should be reliable, patient, and full of lots of different correct explanations.

    But it would sure need to be a specially trained version.

    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      That seems like a domain that ChatGPT could handle quite well.

      Quite the opposite. Models like that do not produce correct information reliably. You're going to have a lot of confused kids trying to reconcile the contradictory information their "tutor" is going to feed them.

      Oh, and they can't do simple arithmetic. It's not going to be very helpful for student's struggling with their math homework.

      It would be cool if every student could have their own private tutor, but this isn't going to cut it.

  • He's a fun guy from Yuggoth!

  • Is it really worth reporting on every company's integration of ChatGPT? There is nothing particularly interesting about what "Khanmigo" is described as doing - you can just ask vanilla ChatGPT to behave in that way and it will.

    Here's a comprehensive prompt for configuring ChatGPT as a tutor that is more sophisticated:
    https://github.com/JushBJJ/Mr.... [github.com]

    Lets you choose learning style, tone, depth, etc.

Thus spake the master programmer: "Time for you to leave." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

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