Stephen Dubner

Here comes this guy, Steve Levitt, accomplished economist, taught at University of Chicago for many years, PhD from MIT, went to undergrad at Harvard, and he's here to tell you that it's all...

a facade or mirage or whatever you want to call it.

If I were working with you on this project, I would encourage you to open up like that, especially since you were, as you put it, ahead of the curve on just ticking the boxes.

Because I just wonder how the message that you're selling gets received otherwise.

Because I just don't know how many people are really frustrated about the status quo that you're describing.

It seems like everybody's bought into it.

One thing I wonder about is how the mainstream introduction of a certain kind of AI, let's just consider chat GPT, the median AI that most people are exposed to and either love or fear or hate or whatever.

How do you see what you're trying to do intersect with this moment?

Because I could see it going both ways.

I could see some people, and I would raise my hand here thinking, wow, if

Knowledge like that is at the touch of everyone's fingertips so easily.

That's awesome because I don't have to spend all my time teaching that to kids if I'm a teacher or memorizing it if I'm a kid.

And I can actually just know that I live with a big foundation of amazing knowledge and I can actually now think more easily.

deeply, more creatively, et cetera.

And then I could imagine there are people who take the exact opposite, which is to say, if you let AI become a major character in the way that we educate people, then what are we even doing here?

I hear both sentiments expressed.

So I'm curious, A, I have a feeling I know where your sentiment lies would be in position one that I just argued, I'm guessing.

But B, I really want to know how you see it being a tool that's used in a learning environment like yours.

Coming up after the break, who were Steve Levitt's favorite guests on People I Mostly Admire?

I'm Stephen Dubner, and this is a special bonus episode of Freakonomics Radio.