What Happens When an AI Tutor Struggles With Basic Math

WSJ Tech News Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

News, Tech News

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In March 2023, education nonprofit Khan Academy launched an AI-powered education chatbot known as Khanmigo. Some 65,000 kids in grades three and up, in schools across the country, are part of an ongoing pilot of the tool. It's supposed to serve as a personal tutor for students in whatever subject they might need help with. But as WSJ education reporter Matt Barnum found when he tested the bot, it sometimes struggled with basic math. He joins host Alex Ossola to talk about what that means for students. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Shopify.
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0:21.8	or lowercase that Shopify dot coe
0:24.2	ek slash special offer. Welcome to tech news briefing it's Tuesday February 20th. I'm Alex Osala for the Wall Street Journal.
0:36.8	Today's show is all about kids and tech, how it could work better and where it might be falling short.
0:45.3	First up, after tech leaders faced blistering criticism during a congressional hearing last month, many parents are again
0:50.1	thinking about how to keep their kids safe on social media. Are parental
0:54.1	controls enough? W.S.J. Family and Tech columnist Julie Jargan joins us to talk
0:59.4	about how parental controls are changing and what parents can do to make them more effective.
1:04.9	And then, Education Nonprofit Khan Academy has created a bot intended to help kids with their
1:10.2	schoolwork.
1:11.2	But what happens when the bot gets things wrong? We'll hear
1:14.2	about the tool and its implications from W.S.J. Education reporter Matt Barnum.
1:21.8	But first, parental controls on social media are not one-size-fits-all.
1:26.2	It can be complicated for parents to protect their children from content that they might find damaging or upsetting.
1:31.7	So what are social media companies doing about it and what
	...

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