Bret Taylor: evaluation

Transcript context

…Okay. One more question along these lines and then I want to zoom out on just where AI is heading and something I love to ask folks like you that are at the cutting edge of AI is what you're teaching your kids. I know you have kids, I feel like the world is going to be very different when they grow up. What are you encouraging them to learn that you think is different maybe from previous generations to help them be successful in a world of AI abundance? I don't know if I'm teaching them differently, but I'm really trying to encourage them to make AI a part of their lives. I was reflecting actually when I took the AP calculus exams in '97, '98 AB and BC, I could use a graphing calculator. And I haven't done this research I was meaning to plug this into ChatGPT before our conversation, but I'll do it after. Did the calculus exam change before and after they allowed the calculator in the exam? I assume it did. But essentially, to when you allow the calculator in the exam, you need to make sure that none of the questions benefit people for having a calculator or not, which actually forces you to rethink the problems to test calculus knowledge that don't benefit from like road arithmetic or the other things you can do on a graphing calculator. I think that a lot of education doesn't presume you have a super intelligence in your pocket. And so, if you ask someone to write an essay on a book that they read, you could probably hallucinate one pretty easily from one of the big providers like ChatGPT. And maybe if you are skilled enough that prompting, maybe even your teacher won't know it's written by an AI. So what do you do? How do you teach kids differently? It's really hard for teachers right now because I think we haven't gone through the transition of adding calculators to the exams. So, I think a lot of the mechanisms we have to evaluate students are broken by the existence of ChatGPT and the like. So I think we're in a very awkward phase, but I think we can still both teach kids how to think and teach kids how to learn. And I think our education system can catch up and I actually think these models can be one of the most effective educational tools in history. I don't know if you're a visual learner or reading learner. I like to read. I didn't love going to lectures. I don't learn that well from them. I like to read the book and if you have a teacher who doesn't teach in your style, you can now go home and ask ChatGPT to teach you in another mechanism. My kids use ChatGPT to quiz them before a test. You can use audio mode or chat mode. It's better than cue cards. My daughter took home a Shakespeare book, she took a picture of a page she didn't understand and ChatGPT explained it to her way better than I would've as well. I think every child in this world has a personalized tutor that can teach them in the way that they best learn, visually, over audio, reading. We have a platform that can test you, that can quiz you. I think it's really an amplifier of agency. I think the kids who have agency, who have aspirations to learn something, I think you have what is the best combination of every teacher you've ever had and these models and you can use it. So with my kids, my oldest daughter learned how to code and she was making a website and every time she had a question for me, I would just make her use ChatGPT. d and these models and you can use it. So with my kids, my oldest daughter learned how to code and she was making a website and every time she had a question for me, I would just make her use ChatGPT. Not because I was trying to be an obnoxious father, but I'm like she needs to learn to use this tool because it's amazing. So, I really am trying to have them learn how to use it constructively in their lives. But all that said, I just feel a ton of empathy for public school teachers right now. It's very hard because the technology is moving faster than our educational system. And I think particularly as it relates to evaluation, it's just really challenging for teachers right now. And I worry because these technologies amplify agency, the opposite can also be true. If you are a student trying to not learn something, I think these tools probably provide a lot of mechanisms to avoid it as well. And so, I think there's a challenge for parents and teachers and I think we're going to end up with a handful of years here. But I brought up the calculus AP exam because obviously, a graphing calculator is not ChatGPT, don't get me wrong. But I think we've been able to figure out a way to conform homework and in-class learning and tests around the technologies available to us fairly successfully to date. And I'm fairly confident we'll figure it out and I think it's going to... And on the much more positive side, I don't know, I went to public schools, I don't know if you did too. You end up with some pretty bad teachers at times and now, you have an outlet. You don't need to be the rich kid who can afford a tutor anymore to get tutoring. If you are a kid who excels in math and your school doesn't have advanced statistics classes, well, now you do. So I think this is just an incredibly democratizing force with kids who have agency and I think that's very exciting. I'm hopeful that there's a 11-year-old right now who's going to start a really amazing company 10 years from now whose ChatGPT is going to be their primary tutor that led to that outcome. And I think that's pretty cool.…

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