A great example of "can"

For those who don’t know me very well, I am an avid photographer. I will resist the temptation to dive deep into my love for all things camera tech, so will just shout out to Fuji! As a result of this passion, I have an extensive list of podcasts and creators I follow. One of them is Chase Jarvis. Chase has always been at the forefront of where emerging technology meets creativity. One example is his app, book, and community a“The best camera is the one that’s with you.” Chase’s app beat Instagram to market by a year, and it is a fascinating story.

Chase’s podcast, ChaseJarvis Live, is perfect for me since it covers creativity and the latest tech and entrepreneurs. Recently, he had an episode called “Is AI Killing Learning” with Sal Khan. The name might sound familiar, as Sal is the founder of Khan Academy. My kids are familiar with the fantastic work being done there.

The episode is worth listening to to hear Sal talk about Khan Academy’s origins. But what caught my attention is how Khan Academy is approaching AI for learning how to write. I won’t go into detail on the solution they are working on; I urge you to listen to the episode. What I want to talk about is the general thought process applied.

Khan Academy produces some of the best tutorial videos for various learning topics. They are best known for their math content. Protip: The math videos are really great for refreshing topics your kiddo might be struggling with and you haven’t done in years! Watch them together! Because they produce content, the “must” type thinking could lead them to use AI to generate their content and videos. There might be a use there that is being explored, and maybe they should look at that. But, the amazing concept talked about in the episode falls squarely in the “can” type of innovation thinking.

If you follow GenAI at all, you are aware of the issues that educators face with handling what what GenAI enables students to do. In most cases it is a combative stance. “How do we stop students from just using GPT to write their papers for them?” This has led to companies building systems to “detect” AI generated papers so that schools can find what they consider cheating. I won’t debate the effiicacy or correctness of this approach. Mainly because this approach also falls into “must”. “We must stop students from using this to cheat”

Khan Academy has fully embraced “can” innovative thinking with GenAI. Their thought process is rooted in “How can we use this to enable students to learn how to write more easily and have it be personalized to their needs?” and “How can we use this technology to enable teachers to focus on teaching and give them abilities and insights they didn’t have before?”. The solution that he describes is truly inspiring.

Check out the episode to hear the details. If you are interested in a great example of using “can” thinking, it is perfect!