How to make digital technology an educational force for good

Sal Khan tightly controls his children’s screen time and their access to social media, but the founder and chief executive of the Khan Academy, an online education organisation, is a big believer in the power of the digital world and artificial intelligence to help students get ahead. Like many executives in Silicon Valley, he is well aware of the dangers of technology and how far apps have been designed to drive usage and harvest personal information. But he also sees the value of new tools to support more personalised and effective learning, ironing out differences in access to resources and boosting education more broadly. There is a need to be vigilant about the risks of a decline in critical thinking as we outsource work to AI, just as Google has displaced much memorisation of facts. But Khan, who recently wrote the book Brave New Words about AI and education, suggests technology still works best when supplementing human effort. “It’s still very important to learn basic skills,” he says, adding that the people who have the highest understanding “are getting the most out of it.”