Sal Khan

Yeah, you know, I think it is a big, interesting question on what AI is going to do to the labor force broadly. I think, you know, the meme that has been going around over the last year, year and a half has been you won't get replaced by an AI. You're going to get replaced by a human using an AI.

And so I think the imperative is that almost in any industry, if you learn to leverage these tools to be more productive, you're going to be in a good place and maybe be more productive in more domains as well. So I think that's where the education system needs to make sure that students can leverage these tools, one, to enhance their own learning. At the end of the day, if you can...

If you want to be, you know, people write, people say how AI can do writing well, how it can do software engineering well. The reality is you're still going to need people to be able to put those pieces together. So instead of being the person writing the basic code, you're going to be more of the software architect or the project manager.

Instead of being the entry-level writer, the world is going to need more editors, more people who can put things together. But no one wants an editor or a software architect who can't write or code as well as the junior writers or the junior software engineers. So I think it's still an imperative for people to learn their traditional academic skills. In fact, maybe better than in the past.

And maybe the AI can help there. And then be able to leverage these tools in whatever they're actually doing.

Yeah, I think it is a big interesting question on what AI is going to do to the labor force broadly. I think the meme that has been going around over the last year, year and a half has been you won't get replaced by an AI. You're going to get replaced by a human using an AI.

And so I think the imperative is that almost in any industry, if you learn to leverage these tools to be more productive, you're going to be in a good place and maybe be more productive in more domains as well. So I think that's where the education system needs to make sure that students can leverage these tools, one, to enhance their own learning. At the end of the day, if you can...

If you want to be, people say how AI can do writing well, how it can do software engineering well. The reality is you're still going to need people to be able to put those pieces together. So instead of being the person writing the basic code, you're going to be more of the software architect or the project manager.

Instead of being the entry-level writer, the world is going to need more editors, more people who can put things together. But no one wants an editor or a software architect who can't write or code as well as the junior writers or the junior software engineers. So I think it's still an imperative for people to learn their traditional academic skills. In fact, maybe better than in the past.

And maybe the AI can help there. And then be able to leverage these tools in whatever they're actually doing.

Yeah. I mean, this is the other fear that folks have is that, I mean, I could go on to any of these generative AIs and say, hey, write a screenplay for me or create an art piece in the style of whatever. And it'll bam, it was just there. And so everyone's afraid, like, oh my God, this is the end of creativity. I'll say a couple of things.

One, this isn't the first time in history something like this has happened. And I write about this in my book, Brave New Words, is in the 19th century, when the camera came out, I am sure a lot of portrait artists said, oh my God, this is cheating. This thing, you just press a button. and it does essentially a real life picture of it, but all of the artistry is gone.

Now we know on one level that didn't happen. Maybe the people hiring a portrait artist to paint a portrait of them, maybe that market has declined a little bit because of the camera, but it didn't get rid of creativity. In fact, a whole new field, a new creative field, not only existed, but it democratized art in some ways where more people could do artistic things.

I think you're going to see something very similar happening with AI. And the other thing I emphasize is, you know, creativity isn't a zero sum game. It's not that like, let's say you and I, let's consider ourselves creative people. Each of us by ourselves can be creative.

reasonably creative, but if you and I are able to chat about things and brainstorm together and riff together, I think we're each going to become more creative, not less. I'm not just going to say, oh, Hala has got good ideas. I'm just going to check out. I'm going to say, oh, I love Hala's idea there. And well, what if we did this too?

Yeah. I mean, this is the other fear that folks have is that, I mean, I could go on to any of these generative AIs and say, hey, write a screenplay for me or create an art piece in the style of whatever. And it'll bam, it was just there. And so everyone's afraid, like, oh my God, this is the end of creativity. I'll say a couple of things.

I think any of us who consider ourselves reasonably creative recognize that our most creative times in our life were when we were around other creative people. And so I think AI is going to democratize that.

where there could be a young girl in Afghanistan someplace, and she's not even allowed to go to school, but if she has access to this, she could brainstorm, she could riff ideas, she could test ideas. Now, it'll be even better if it could be with the AI and other people around, but you might not have that. And so I think AI is going to actually be an enhancer for creativity.

One, this isn't the first time in history something like this has happened. And I write about this in my book, Brave New Words, is in the 19th century, when the camera came out, I am sure a lot of portrait artists said, oh my God, this is cheating. This thing, you just press a button. And it does essentially a real life picture of it. But all of the artistry is gone.

I also think it's going to lower, if today you are, I didn't even allow myself to think that I might be able to become a filmmaker one day. And I was like, who gets to make a film? They cost tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. You gotta know the right people, et cetera, et cetera.

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