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Sal Khan and Bill Gates Are Wrong About AI
What can we learn from a century of failed ed-tech hype?
If you listen to Sal Khan, we’re on the verge of a profound transformation of education.
Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, a nonprofit site designed to help students with their schoolwork, believes that generative AI will give every student access to “world-class personalized learning.” He foresees a future in which every student will have their own individualized tutor available 24/7, helping them to master their studies. The AI will plan lessons for teachers, provide learning plans for each student, create assessments to check student learning, and grade those assessments.
Bill Gates loves the idea! He imagines a middle school in the not-too-distant future:
Picture this: You’re a seventh-grade student who struggles to keep up in math. But now, you have an AI tutor like the one Sal describes by your side. As you work through a challenging set of fraction problems, it won’t just give you the answer — it breaks each problem down into digestible steps. When you get stuck, it gives you easy-to-understand explanations and a gentle nudge in the right direction. When you finally get the answer, it generates targeted practice questions that help build your understanding and confidence.
