Author: Salman Khan

Release year: 2024

Publisher: Viking

Link to my handwritten notes

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My review

Sometime in 2022, before ChatGPT exploded into public consciousness, Salman Khan received an email from OpenAI. They invited him, the founder of the globally respected non-profit educational organization Khan Academy, to experiment with their new conversational AI. OpenAI’s engineers were keen to understand how this nascent technology could potentially revolutionize learning for students worldwide, and Khan, with his 16 years of experience in online education, was a natural choice for early feedback. Few could have predicted the seismic shift these AI agents were about to trigger.

Like many who encountered early large language models, Khan was profoundly impressed by ChatGPT’s capabilities. He was particularly captivated by its potential for educational engagement, such as simulating dialogues between students and historical figures or fictional characters – bringing learning to life in entirely new ways.

However, this early access also sparked concerns. Khan grappled with the potential downsides: How would student motivation and learning habits be impacted if cognitive tasks like homework could simply be offloaded to AI? What kind of society might emerge if the incentive to develop critical thinking and learning skills diminished?

Driven by both the immense potential and the inherent risks, Khan and his team embarked on creating their own AI conversational agent, embedded within the Khan Academy platform. They named it Khanmigo – a blend of “Khan” and the Spanish word “conmigo” (with me). Brave New Words is the product of this journey, capturing Khan’s vision, experiments, and reflections on navigating this new technological frontier.

What stands out most about this book is its fundamentally optimistic vision for AI in education. In a landscape often dominated by fear – concerns that AI spells doom for teachers and stunts student growth – Khan argues compellingly that AI primarily illuminates pre-existing problems in our educational systems, problems that now demand urgent solutions.

His optimism is, thankfully, balanced with caution. Khan maintains a grounded perspective throughout, acknowledging the challenges and ethical considerations that accompany AI’s integration into learning.

If there’s one minor criticism, it’s that the book’s tone occasionally strays into feeling like promotional material for Khan Academy and its new AI tutor, Khanmigo. Khan highlights the platform’s reach and capabilities, sometimes in ways that feel self-congratulatory. For instance, he notes:

“Despite being a nonprofit, we have been able to build a team that rivals those of the most resource-rich tech companies. Hundreds of incredibly talented people have committed a major part of their careers to be part of the Khan Academy team, often taking considerable pay cuts to do so.”

However, it’s difficult to fault him too heavily. Khan is a pioneer in this space, and Khan Academy’s work, especially with Khanmigo, is genuinely pushing boundaries. He’s proud of his team and their mission, and perhaps rightly so. Reading that quote resonates deeply with my own experience. Having recently joined Alloprof, a non-profit focused on supporting student success in Quebec, I recognize that same dedication Khan describes. There’s an incredible energy that comes from working with passionate people committed to tackling fundamental educational challenges.

Like Khan Academy, Alloprof is grappling with the need for compelling, workable solutions to improve education, albeit on a regional scale. Khan’s reflections affirm the urgency and importance of this mission, especially as AI accelerates the need for change.

Khan’s vision, detailed in the book, is inspiring. He paints a picture of the near future with examples that felt like science fiction just years ago but now seem remarkably attainable:

  • (p. 97) AI providing real-time, personalized support to students during class, allowing them to get answers without disrupting the lesson flow or feeling left behind, while simultaneously providing teachers with insights to better engage the class.
  • (p. 105) The potential for “Artificial Empaths” or AI therapists to supplement mental health services, offering accessible support where traditional resources are lacking.
  • (p. 127) AI guiding students away from misinformation rabbit holes, gently steering them back towards balanced perspectives and reliable information.

Ultimately, Brave New Words offers a hopeful perspective. It serves as a valuable time capsule, capturing the zeitgeist of this transitional period where AI’s role in society is rapidly evolving. Reading it prompts crucial questions about our collective future: Will we achieve the Star Trek-like utopia Khan envisions? Will we fall prey to AI dependence, losing our drive to learn and think critically? Or will we land somewhere in between?

I strongly recommend this book to anyone uncertain about AI’s implications, particularly in education. Salman Khan’s perspective is crucial; few people are better positioned to comment on this topic. He hasn’t just theorized about AI’s potential; he has spent nearly two decades democratizing education through Khan Academy and is now actively integrating AI into that mission with Khanmigo. His insights are born from deep experience and a commitment to accessible, quality learning.

He’s onto something vital. His vision feels achievable, and the book is a compelling call to action.

Félix rating:
👍

Ad moments

To give a clearer sense of why I felt the book sometimes reads like an advertisement, here are a few specific quotes that particularly stood out to me for their promotional tone:

  • (p. 106) The problem of administering new interventions to every human being on the planet in a cost-effective way disappears when the method of administrating treatments is as pervasive as Khan Academy, and people can access it from a cell phone.
  • (p. 111) The parent tries to motivate the child, or explain a concept, but the child feels pressure or judgment. As a result, the parent-child dynamic can sometimes get a little bit heated. Khanmigo can build rapport with kids and not fall into some of the traditional parent-child dynamics.
  • (p. 137) “Parents have asked me whether we might develop a way to allocate time for YouTube or Minecraft based on how much academic work their kids have completed on out site. This is now possible, and we are building it.”
  • (p. 174) Even before considering generative AI, our annual budget [at Khan Academy] as a nonprofit is more than $70 million. That’s a significant number, but it is also equivalent to the budget of a large high school in many parts of the United States—and Khan Academy reaches more than a hundred million learners a year.

📚 Vocabulary

  • prophylactically (p. 117): in order to prevent disease or the possibility of disease: You can take aspirin prophylactically to reduce the risk of heart disease
  • a confounding paradox (p. 202): most commonly understood as Simpson’s Paradox, a statistical phenomenon where a trend appears in several groups of data but disappears or reverses when these groups are combined. This seemingly paradoxical situation arises due to the presence of a confounding variable that is not accounted for in the aggregated data.
  • flotsam (p. 221): floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo; broadly : floating debris.

⭐ Star Quotes

Introduction: Let’s Write a New Story Together

  • (p. xxviii) ⭐ It’s never a good idea to let fear stop you from exploring.

Part 1: Rise of the AI Tutor

Throwing Away the Bottle

  • (p. 5) When it comes to technology and education, it is not that technology is good or bad, it is how you use it that matters.

How to Teach Everything to Everyone

Rise of the AI Tutor

Part II: Giving Voice to the Social Sciences

Why Students Write

The Future of Reading Comprehension, Where Literature Comes Alive!

  • (p. 37) Beyond facilitating reading comprehension, AI can allow learners to immerse themselves in the worlds of the characters by directly talking to them
  • (p. 37) Reading comprehension is extremely important. It is hard to navigate the world, much less make informed decisions, without it.

AI and Creativity

  • (p. 46) Our creativity gains value when we are exposed to the creativity of others. We become more creative when we brainstorm with other creative people, because we riff off one another and build off one another’s thoughts. A generative AI world will only accelerate this process.
  • (p. 49) Every generation has better and better creative tools. At no point have these suppressed human creativity. Rather, they have magnified it.

Conversing With History

Part III: Empowering the Next Innovators

Using Science to Study Science

1 + 1 = Closing the Math Gap

Accessing Courses that Students Otherwise Would Not

The Most Important Subject-Matter Domain to Master

  • (p. 91) “Student achievement has to start with building confidence within themselves, confidence that comes from the knowledge that they know they can do it.” —Hobart’s superintendent, Peggy Buffington

Part IV: Better Together

  • (p. 93) “To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.” —Bruce Lee

Bolstering Collaborative Learning

  • (p. 99) Academic learning isn’t really the only purpose of schooling. Schooling is also about building human connection through friendships, shared adventures, and mutual support.

AI Meets Student Mental Health Coaching

The Place for Parents in AI-Based Education

  • (p. 109) The effort matters more than the outcome.

Increasing Points of Connection Between Parents and Their Kids

  • (p. 116) Generative AI is neither an abdication of parental responsibility nor simply a tool for keeping an eye on our kids. Rather, like all technology before it, it is a tool that we can use to amplify our intent.
  • (p. 116) So much of parenting happens at the dinner table and on the way to school.
  • (p. 117) The parent’s role is to help children create as many options for themselves as possible, all while they build resilience, mindfulness, and a healthy sense of self and purpose.

Part V: Keeping Kids Safe

  • (p. 119) “Never fly faster than your guardian angel.” —Mother Theresa

Delivering the Facts: the State of Bias and Misinformation

  • (p. 124) AI can be auditable and accountable in ways that human recruiters and admission officers aren’t

What About Data Collection?

AI and the Gift of Transparency

AI as “Guardian Angel”

Part VI: Teaching In the Age of AI

  • (p. 141) “I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.” —Alexander the Great

How AI Will Supercharge Teachers and Teaching

  • (p. 145) There’s no job that is safer in the large-language-model world than teaching. Not only are teachers irreplaceable, but AI is going to support teachers so that they can do more of what they enjoy, from deepening personal connections with their students to developing enriching and creative lessons.

Dawn of the AI Teaching Assistant

  • (p. 153) AI is not here to steak the show from teachers; it’s here to help teachers steal the show.
  • (p. 154) What really matters to students is not technology so much as having human-to-human connection in the classroom. Remove the teacher and you remove the critical element foundational to all learning.

Helping Build Alternative Education Models

Fixing Cheating in College

Part VII: The Global Classroom

  • (p. 165) “The world has enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed.” —Mahatma Ghandi

The Global Classroom

  • (p. 169) For [a] technology to be truly transformative, it has to be equitable. It can’t increase the divide between rich and poor. It can’t leave people behind.

Economics of AI in Education

Part VIII: AI, Assessments, and Admissions

  • (p. 177) “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” —William Bruce Cameron

The Future of K-12 Assessments

The AI of College Admissions

  • (p. 194) Rather than introducing new problems in college admissions, AI is forcing us to realize existing deficiencies while offering the possibility for positive change.

Part XI: Work and What Comes Next

  • (p. 195) “The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.” —Rabindranath Tagore
  • (p. 195) ⭐ “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” —Pablo Picasso

Employment in an AI World

  • (p. 200) “The job that’s least affected by AI, according to the early-stage research we have, is roofing, and yet I’ve talked to a couple roofers who’re like, ‘Actually, roofing is going to change, too, because we can now do all of our proposals with AI help.” —Wharton’s Ethan Mollick
  • (p. 200) More changes are coming. The successful strategy will not be to resist but to adapt.

How to Prepare Kids to Thrive in the AI-Future Workplace

  • (p. 202) You need to be good at a craft in order to know what high quality looks like.
  • (p. 205) Entrepreneurship is really the creativity of knowing how to put resources together in order to create value.
  • (p. 206) The successful workers of the future will be those with deep and broad skills. The “three Rs” of reading, writing, and arithmetic are more important than ever.

Matchmaking Between Job Seekers and Employers

Where This Leaves Us, and Where It Will Take Us: A Call For Educated Bravery

  • (p. 216) The strength of a civilization doesn’t lie in its physical size, power, and wealth. Those are just by-products of where the real strength lies: a society’s culture, know-how, and mindset.
  • (p. 220) People with time but no sense of purpose or meaning don’t