Book Review: Brave New Worlds: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (And Why That's a Good Thing) by Salman Khan

This week's review is on Brave New Worlds: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (And Why That's a Good Thing) by Salman Khan.

Yikes.

There's several categories of book which AI will probably make worse. There's the self-promoter book - where a book is written to add to someone's "brand" or gravitas, but which doesn't actually need to exist. There's also the compendium book - where a book is written to gather previously published or written material and combine it - helpful as a guide but nothing new. And there's the business pitch book - where a personal story or journey is designing to sell a specific product or, even, worldview. Brave New Worlds is, sadly, a combination of all three.

A breathless hype text that moves quickly through an overview of AI and its potential role in Khan Academy... er... Education, Brave New Worlds an investor pitch book that recycles basic marketing materials and concepts into Salman Khan's life story. The chapters are mercifully short and subdivided somewhat oddly into nine 20 or so-page parts. These are themed around different topics - but don't seem to address them systematically, maybe it was better as a powerpoint presentation to Open AI.

In addition to be oddly constructed, the book's content fails to engage with education, educators, or parents beyond a trite repetitive formula of:

1. Here's this thing in education/life

2. Khanmigo/AI can do it

3. Don't be scared

This is applied to tutoring, counseling, writing, editing, planning, cheating, assessments, a floor wax, and more!

By the end, I wanted one actual engagement or acknowledgement of a problem with Artificial Intelligence - even the use of power and water that data centers demand would have been a nice canard. Instead, this whirlwind tour of Khanmigo's central role in AI Education serves as little more than burp. Save the reading time and watch the video instead. Better yet - have Stepify summarize it for you and read it in three minutes here.

There are very real artificial intelligence uses and concerns in our educational systems and ignoring them or handwaving them away is not the path forward - either for those promoting the technology or to approach those frightened of it. Increasingly, advocates are taking the Jurassic Park approach and rushing forward out of concern of competition and neglected digital promise. This is not a successful approach especially if we recognize the very real flaws that persist inherent to the system: hallucinations, training biases, poor training data, and more.

 Brave New Worlds: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (And Why That's a Good Thing) by Salman Khan.

Rating: 2/5 Stars

Good For: Corporate investors looking for use cases of AI who aren't interested in the ethical questions.

Best nugget: Khanmigo is Khan + amigo - cause it's your friend.

Please note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. However, I am not paid to provide reviews or use content.