Sep 14, 2026 · 50 min · 12 segments
Technology has been promising to revolutionize education for a long time. Online learning, smartphones, and even asynchronous classes during COVID seemed for a while like they might finally transform…
Leah BelskyGuestMolly GrahamHostI do wanna ask you this question, though, because I feel like there's, like, a lot of, you know, chatter in the world around both, like, basically this being a, a tool that lets people, like, cheat or what-- You know, almost like it's making people dumber, you know? And it's, like, so interesting where you're like, "Wait a minute.
We just gave people this, like, incredible piece of technology that, like, gives them all this access to information," but it's-- there, there is a fear, and I have no idea if it's grounded or not, that it's, that it's so easy, right? It's like, it's like the calculator means you don't have to do math in your head, so we all got dumber, which I, by the way, can't do math in my head.
Like, what-- How do you-- Like, what are you seeing? How do you actually, like, think about that relative to this idea of, like, um, the power of the tool versus sort of, like, how it's being used?
And some of those ways, I think, help people become their best selves, and some of them are diminishing.
My daughter learned her math facts and is now doing long division, and she has, you know, cried tears at the kitchen table trying to learn long division.
If I were to hand her that calculator as a tool while she was learning long division, there is no way she would have learned it.
But the hope is that once she learns long division and has that down, later in her career in math, she can use that calculator to actually enable herself to do higher order math.
If you give kid, you know, a phone and ChatGPT, and they're doing their homework, and what they start to do is take a picture of their homework and say, "Hey, chat, help me," and, and then write the answer down, it may actually feel like learning to them.
But at the end of the day, it's actually taking away that sort of friction and those tears and that struggle that are so important to, to learning.
The challenge we have right now is that, that fear and that concern about the impact of AI on learning is also making many people try to hang back.
And many schools, you know, they're not wanting to engage, teachers not wanting to engage.
We have an opportunity to actually help students understand what it means to learn and to guide them to use these tools in a way that are productive and helpful.
And I think, you know, we didn't do that with social media since it wasn't an education tool.
I do wanna ask you this question, though, because I feel like there's, like, a lot of, you know, chatter in the world around both, like, basically this being a, a tool that lets people, like, cheat or what-- You know, almost like it's making people dumber, you know? And it's, like, so interesting where you're like, "Wait a minute.
We just gave people this, like, incredible piece of technology that, like, gives them all this access to information," but it's-- there, there is a fear, and I have no idea if it's grounded or not, that it's, that it's so easy, right? It's like, it's like the calculator means you don't have to do math in your head, so we all got dumber, which I, by the way, can't do math in my head.
Like, what-- How do you-- Like, what are you seeing? How do you actually, like, think about that relative to this idea of, like, um, the power of the tool versus sort of, like, how it's being used?
And some of those ways, I think, help people become their best selves, and some of them are diminishing.
My daughter learned her math facts and is now doing long division, and she has, you know, cried tears at the kitchen table trying to learn long division.
If I were to hand her that calculator as a tool while she was learning long division, there is no way she would have learned it.
But the hope is that once she learns long division and has that down, later in her career in math, she can use that calculator to actually enable herself to do higher order math.
If you give kid, you know, a phone and ChatGPT, and they're doing their homework, and what they start to do is take a picture of their homework and say, "Hey, chat, help me," and, and then write the answer down, it may actually feel like learning to them.
But at the end of the day, it's actually taking away that sort of friction and those tears and that struggle that are so important to, to learning.
The challenge we have right now is that, that fear and that concern about the impact of AI on learning is also making many people try to hang back.
And many schools, you know, they're not wanting to engage, teachers not wanting to engage.
We have an opportunity to actually help students understand what it means to learn and to guide them to use these tools in a way that are productive and helpful.
And I think, you know, we didn't do that with social media since it wasn't an education tool.
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