Verbal Answers to "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit

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Sal: I've been doing this
"Ask Me Anything," on Reddit,

00:00:03.661 --> 00:00:06.997
and I've been doing my best
to keep up with the questions,

00:00:06.997 --> 00:00:11.702
but my fingers are getting tired, so
I thought I would use, as a backup,

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what I'm used to doing, which is
make a video on the questions.

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So, this is the Ask Me Anything.

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I posted this earlier today,

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and I put this little picture of myself
to verify that it was actually me.

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Here are the questions, and
I'll try not to be redundant,

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so I'm going to focus on the
questions that I haven't answered.

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This first one, "As an aspiring teacher,
do you have any tips for new teachers?"

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And then I did make a little short
comment that my best teachers,

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I felt, were the ones that talked
with us, that treated us as equals,

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rather than were at the board and talked
at us, or, in some way, belittled us.

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I don't think most teachers
do that, but some do.

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It didn't feel good.

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I would say on top of that, I
think the energy or the interest

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or the passion that someone takes into
a subject is a pretty good indicator

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of how students will perceive the subject.

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I think human beings are very
cued into other people's tonality

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and, in fact, more cued in
than most people realize.

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If you, yourself as a
teacher, are not passionate

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and really interested in what you're
saying and really excited about it,

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it's going to be very hard
to get students there.

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So I would say talk with
them, be conversational,

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make sure it's clear that
you're on the same side as them,

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that it's not you against them,

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and show a real deep
passion for the subject.

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Obviously, it wouldn't hurt if
you have a very deep grounding

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in what you're teaching.

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I think if that happens,
you'll do just fine.

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Now let's go down here.

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There's a bunch of comments here,

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but I'll try to focus at
these top-level questions.

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And someone here, I think,
had a very good comment.

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"Teach your kids passion
and love the subject

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"and not for study for the test."

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I think once again, a lot of that
comes from the tone and the passion

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that the teacher themselves have.

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Then you say, "Which subject did
you enjoy teaching the most?"

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and I had a little answer here.

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It is true, I found
subjects that, 10 years ago,

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if you would ask me, "Do
you find that interesting?"

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I'll say, "Oh, I don't know.

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"I haven't really looked
into that deeply."

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But once I start really
getting into the subject,

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I have been making a few videos
very recently about agriculture,

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and I am finding them as
interesting as any of the videos

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that I've done about galactic
collisions or the financial crisis.

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It really is just how you view it.

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All of these things really do tell us
about how the universe is structured

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and how we, as humans, came
about being who we are.

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Let's see.

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Let's see what else I can answer here.

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There are some very nice comments.

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That's a nice quote there, not mine,

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"Those who seek beauty will find it."

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I agree.

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Let's see.

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This person right over here is ctngu.

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"I passed statistics and chemistry.

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"Thanks for your videos."

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This was a thank you.

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OK.

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"How long does it take you to
create one of your tutorial videos?"

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I did answer it a little bit.

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My comment, depends on what I'm doing.

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If I'm doing a fairly
straightforward algebra work example,

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it will take me really
the length of the video.

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I like to do them in real time
and let the thought process

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actually show up in the video.

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If I'm doing something like just now,

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I made a video on Thomas Malthus

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and his views on population
limits and things like that,

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I already knew about Thomas
Maltus and his views,

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but I did read up a little bit.

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I spent a couple of hours making sure

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that I had all of the
interesting ideas that he was,

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and making sure that I
had his ideas straight.

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But then I just made the video.

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I don't like to script or over-prepare
because it kills spontaneity that way.

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Sometimes, if I'm doing a video
on something that's a relatively,

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I would say, new concept,

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for example, I took organic chemistry
in college, and I did just fine in it.

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But I felt when I went
through it in college,

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I didn't gain an
intuition for the subject.

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One of my litmus tests for
whether I will do a video is

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do I have an intuition, do I
have a passion for the subject?

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For me, to do that in organic chemistry,

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it took me about two weeks.

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I immersed myself with tons of
textbooks, asked people questions,

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and then I kind of got it.

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I got the intuition, and then
I was ready to really teach it.

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And because I wanted to teach
it so it wasn't based on
memorization of mechanisms,

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I wanted people to see the underlying
underpinnings of organic chemistry.

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There are a couple of comments there.

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I'm still trying to ...

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I'm a relatively new Reddit user,

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so I am still trying to figure
out the best way to use it.

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Let's see.

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Someone was envious.

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"You get to learn new subjects."

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They should be.

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"I consider myself the
luckiest guy on the planet,"

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that was my comment right over there.

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"It's true, I'm having
the time of my life."

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Let's see.

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There's all these other comments.

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I see "Load more comments."

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Load more comments.

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Let's see.

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Let me scroll down just a little bit.

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Let's see.

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One way, "on your way to work?"

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"I thought you quit your job?"

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Yes, I did quit my old job in finance,

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but then I started doing
the Khan Academy full time,

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and so you might call it a
"work" in quotation marks,

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but this is where I work now, and
so yes, I work at the Khan Academy.

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OK.

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OK.

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"I'm glad they decided to hire you."

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Yes, I am glad that the Khan
Academy decided to hire me as well.

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"They hired him because
he is in the CEO's family.

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"Just look at his last name."

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It's true.

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Nepotism at its worst form
occurring at the Khan Academy.

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I have the same last name as the founder,

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Although for not for profit, not
the CEO, the executive director.

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Then let's see, "Khan Academy = job?"

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"The grow on jobies."

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I don't understand that.

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"They grow on jobies."

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Oh, what are jobs?

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I see.

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I guess.

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Let's see.

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This is ... all right.

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Let's see.

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I'm trying my best to get through them.

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I think there's 1,500
or 2,000 comments here.

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Let's see.

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"I remember finishing orchem.

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"I never want to say ...

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"Thank you for putting a great effort."

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OK, let's see.

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OK.

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Let's see.

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"I don't do any prep."

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"Yes, that's not surprising."

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Perhaps a sarcastic comment.

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But yes, I try not to do
any significant scripting.

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The way I tell people
is, "Prep your mind."

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I try to get the concepts
distilled down as much as possible

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and for me to really have
some clarity around it,

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but I like to be a little extemporaneous
in the actual delivery of the video.

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It keeps it fun for me.

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Let's see.

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OK, this guy just or
this gal just discovered

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that we do have organic chemistry videos,

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and then, "What did you use to study?"

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I forgot the exact names of the books.

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I had my old organic textbook.

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I think it was a ...

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Kemp was a professor, and he
was my professor in college too.

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He was actually quite a good professor.

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He had this dramatic-speaking
voice and all the rest.

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Actually, it would be pretty neat
to get him to do YouTube videos.

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OK.

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"Where has your site
had the biggest impact?

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"Are you seeing much use
in developing nations?

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"Can you share your best success stories?"

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From Day 1, and to a large degree, this
is what has motivated me to keep going,

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is we've got tons of letters.

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If you go to our YouTube channel,
you'll see them, or our Facebook page.

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I asked for some testimonials recently.

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I'm in the process of writing a book.

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We got some of these pretty
amazing testimonials.

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This was one of them
that I copied and pasted.

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I covered his name up, although he
probably wouldn't mind sharing it.

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This was a mind-blowing story.

00:07:00.189 --> 00:07:04.186
He was into drugs, and then he
became a really awesome student.

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Then some other people
contributed right over here.

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These are pretty cool stories too.

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Then, let's see.

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We got this one, South Africa.

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There's a ton of these.

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Actually, we're hoping to collate
these so that the world can see,

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at least the ...

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There is no doubt in our mind,
and I say "our," not just me

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because we're a team now.

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We're 22 people, and we're
growing as an organization.

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But there's no doubt in our mind
that there are people out there,

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because they're sending us
their letters and their videos,

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that have been heavily influenced
by some of the work we've done.

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Frankly, in our minds,
these people did 99% of it,

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and we just gave them the tools, the
outlet for them to improve themselves.

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But we're also seeing more, I guess
you could call it, "analytical data"

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in more controlled settings.

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For example, in Los Altos,

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Los Altos is an affluent area,
but they also piloted Khan Academy

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with their Algebra-Readiness kind of a ...

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It was kind of a remedial math class.

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Most of these students were not affluent.

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Most of them did not come from
families that spoke English at home

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or that had had college degrees.

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In that, we saw very
promising results last year,

00:08:04.668 --> 00:08:07.776
double the number of students who
are at grade level in six months,

00:08:07.776 --> 00:08:11.669
and some of them leapfrogged
ahead to be advanced,

00:08:11.669 --> 00:08:15.869
which we had never expected and the
school district hadn't seen that before,

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where students in remedial class
actually jumped ahead of the kids

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who weren't in the remedial class.

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That's why they've brought
in the program this year.

00:08:23.571 --> 00:08:26.969
We've also this year started
some pilots in other classrooms,

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some charter schools, public/private
schools in different demographics.

00:08:31.932 --> 00:08:34.672
So far, the results have
been very promising.

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Our goal is Khan Academy will always
be primarily for the bulk of students

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who are using it independently
of any formal structure.

00:08:43.491 --> 00:08:45.691
But we think it can be kind of ...

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It can super charge what happens if you
do have access to an amazing classroom.

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What we hope to do at these pilots,

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it isn't a prove or not prove,

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although it is definitely awesome
validation when we get the type of data

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that we saw in Los Altos.

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Our goal is to see how can this work?

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What settings is it applicable in?

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What settings is it not applicable in?

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And where it is applicable,
seeing how we can improve it.

00:09:09.668 --> 00:09:10.972
What are the best practices?

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What are the things that
lead to better results?

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The real exciting thing is
that we have a platform.

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It has traction.

00:09:16.796 --> 00:09:18.347
We're getting data on it.

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In our minds, we can only
improve from where we are,

00:09:20.143 --> 00:09:23.915
but we think we're at the very
early stages of what's going on.

00:09:23.915 --> 00:09:24.657
All right.

00:09:24.657 --> 00:09:26.972
Let me get the questions.

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All right.

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"When do you plan on making more
advanced videos like quantum mechanics,

00:09:30.970 --> 00:09:33.312
"general relativity, and
more advanced mathematics?

00:09:33.312 --> 00:09:34.885
"Thanks, and I love everything you do."

00:09:34.885 --> 00:09:36.681
Thank you.

00:09:36.681 --> 00:09:39.665
Yes, we want to do all of the above.

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I do not know quantum mechanics
and the depth that I need to know

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in order to make videos on it tomorrow.

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I have had a few conversations with
people who might be good at that,

00:09:50.983 --> 00:09:53.636
but it's always an interesting
question of what constitutes good

00:09:53.636 --> 00:09:55.874
because they should have
deep subject expertise.

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They should have, I would call them,

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they should be good communicators.

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When I say "good communicators,"
not just good oratorical skills,

00:10:03.181 --> 00:10:05.273
but they should be able to
get in the mind of the learner

00:10:05.273 --> 00:10:08.500
and understand what the learner
might be having trouble with.

00:10:08.500 --> 00:10:10.680
Then for that small subset of people,

00:10:10.680 --> 00:10:13.750
you have to find the ones that want to
spend a lot of time making YouTube videos.

00:10:13.750 --> 00:10:16.503
But we're working on it,
and they will exist soon.

00:10:16.503 --> 00:10:17.539
What was especially exciting,

00:10:17.539 --> 00:10:19.645
there was a gentleman right over here,

00:10:19.645 --> 00:10:21.292
and this is his handle right over here,

00:10:21.292 --> 00:10:23.623
who is one of the leaders
in quantum computing,

00:10:23.623 --> 00:10:26.615
and it looks like he is
that small subset of people

00:10:26.615 --> 00:10:29.517
who is interested in not only
being a leader in his field

00:10:29.517 --> 00:10:31.981
but also maybe making YouTube
videos so that the rest of us

00:10:31.981 --> 00:10:34.766
can understand quantum computing.

00:10:34.766 --> 00:10:37.631
I look forward to a future
conversation with Michael Nielsen.

00:10:37.631 --> 00:10:40.618
We've already contacted each other.

00:10:40.618 --> 00:10:41.156
Let's see.

00:10:41.156 --> 00:10:44.076
What other questions are there?

00:10:44.076 --> 00:10:46.112
What other questions are there?

00:10:46.112 --> 00:10:48.269
I'm looking for the questions.

00:10:48.269 --> 00:10:49.271
All right.

00:10:49.271 --> 00:10:49.959
Let's see.

00:10:49.959 --> 00:10:53.138
"I'm a student, terribly
bureaucratic school system.

00:10:53.138 --> 00:10:55.323
"One of the biggest problems I see
is that many inner city students

00:10:55.323 --> 00:10:57.201
"simply don't care or apathetic.

00:10:57.201 --> 00:10:59.957
"Do you have any suggestions on
how we can motivate them to learn

00:10:59.957 --> 00:11:03.250
"and enjoy it too so that
they can make the curve?"

00:11:03.250 --> 00:11:06.141
As I already answered it in text,

00:11:06.141 --> 00:11:07.643
very hard question,

00:11:07.643 --> 00:11:11.528
I don't claim to have some
magic solution to that.

00:11:11.528 --> 00:11:17.940
On one-off bases, we are
seeing encouraging things.

00:11:17.940 --> 00:11:19.336
We've worked with some charter schools,

00:11:19.336 --> 00:11:21.667
or starting to work with some
charter schools this year,

00:11:21.667 --> 00:11:23.657
in under-served communities,

00:11:23.657 --> 00:11:27.306
and we are seeing that
when you allow the students

00:11:27.306 --> 00:11:30.804
to have a self-directed
version of learning

00:11:30.804 --> 00:11:32.797
when they can set goals for themselves

00:11:32.797 --> 00:11:35.014
and then see how well
they achieve those goals,

00:11:35.014 --> 00:11:37.671
when the culture of the
classroom isn't about

00:11:37.671 --> 00:11:40.998
passively listening to the teacher
but actively working on your own goals

00:11:40.998 --> 00:11:44.180
and helping each other and
working alongside of the teacher,

00:11:44.180 --> 00:11:46.802
it does look like it's
kind of a universal thing,

00:11:46.802 --> 00:11:50.624
that people really do get into it.

00:11:50.624 --> 00:11:52.667
But we don't know the answer,

00:11:52.667 --> 00:11:56.283
and this is something that we're
going to constantly try to work on

00:11:56.283 --> 00:11:59.338
and see what can happen.

00:11:59.338 --> 00:12:00.326
Let's see.

00:12:00.326 --> 00:12:02.962
"Why don't you have
all the answers, Khan?"

00:12:02.962 --> 00:12:03.936
Yes.

00:12:03.936 --> 00:12:05.185
All right.

00:12:05.185 --> 00:12:06.028
Let's see.

00:12:06.028 --> 00:12:10.673
"Who or what inspired you to take so much
time to do something so significant?"

00:12:10.673 --> 00:12:14.046
As I answered, when I started this,

00:12:14.046 --> 00:12:15.624
and I think if you read
the rest of this story,

00:12:15.624 --> 00:12:19.795
it will be clear that I read a
lot of science fiction books.

00:12:19.795 --> 00:12:22.792
But when I started it, sometimes
when I daydreamed about it,

00:12:22.792 --> 00:12:25.671
I hoped that it would be something
that many, many people could use.

00:12:25.671 --> 00:12:28.466
There was this idea there's
no reason why it couldn't be.

00:12:28.466 --> 00:12:32.979
But at the same time, I had
tried many ventures in the past

00:12:32.979 --> 00:12:34.813
that never got any traction,

00:12:34.813 --> 00:12:37.644
so I, at this point, had
become, I guess, mature enough

00:12:37.644 --> 00:12:39.997
to realize that it's one
thing to have an idea.

00:12:39.997 --> 00:12:43.166
It's another thing to actually
maybe have it be useful.

00:12:43.166 --> 00:12:45.366
But what excited me from the beginning was

00:12:45.366 --> 00:12:47.829
even for those first cousins
that I was working with

00:12:47.829 --> 00:12:52.597
and for those very first
people who happened to bump
into the content on YouTube,

00:12:52.597 --> 00:12:55.193
it seemed like, based on
what they were telling me,

00:12:55.193 --> 00:12:56.861
that it was having a real impact.

00:12:56.861 --> 00:13:00.931
And so just that made it really
worthwhile to make the content,

00:13:00.931 --> 00:13:04.542
and it was a fun idea that a minimum would
be just a little thing for our family

00:13:04.542 --> 00:13:07.803
and for the small percentage
of people in the world

00:13:07.803 --> 00:13:09.276
who happened to bump into them,

00:13:09.276 --> 00:13:10.762
and it's been a little surreal

00:13:10.762 --> 00:13:16.364
because it looks like it's
turned into much more than that.

00:13:16.364 --> 00:13:17.838
OK.

00:13:17.838 --> 00:13:20.682
"Do you ever think about what you
achieved with the Khan Academy

00:13:20.682 --> 00:13:22.648
"in the short amount of
time it's been around?

00:13:22.648 --> 00:13:24.688
"And if so, how does it make you feel?

00:13:24.688 --> 00:13:25.933
"Do you feel like you have a legacy?"

00:13:25.933 --> 00:13:31.954
And I did answer this already, but I
think it's been amazing and strange,

00:13:31.954 --> 00:13:35.661
and even looking at how many people
have shown up for this thread

00:13:35.661 --> 00:13:39.655
is strange for me because I am a guy
sitting literally in a $6 T-shirt

00:13:39.655 --> 00:13:46.765
in a room someplace, wearing sneakers,
not expecting many people to care much,

00:13:46.765 --> 00:13:49.385
but they're here.

00:13:49.385 --> 00:13:51.228
I try ...

00:13:51.228 --> 00:13:55.840
I think I look at a lot of
other examples of things

00:13:55.840 --> 00:14:01.700
that had these meteoric rises
and then crashed and burned.

00:14:01.700 --> 00:14:04.476
My biggest fear is I do not
want Khan Academy to be that,

00:14:04.476 --> 00:14:09.710
and so for myself and the entire
team here and all of our supporters,

00:14:09.710 --> 00:14:11.899
I think the main thing
is we put our head down,

00:14:11.899 --> 00:14:14.039
continue to execute, continue to iterate,

00:14:14.054 --> 00:14:16.380
continue to make what we
have better and better,

00:14:16.380 --> 00:14:19.606
that we use the traction that we
have and the reach that we have

00:14:19.606 --> 00:14:24.588
as really a huge responsibility
to be as good as possible.

00:14:24.588 --> 00:14:28.925
Hopefully, if we keep doing that,
we'll be able to be relevant

00:14:28.925 --> 00:14:32.304
not just next year but 10 years from
now or maybe even 100 years from now.

00:14:32.304 --> 00:14:35.016
That's what we're trying to do.

00:14:35.016 --> 00:14:38.026
I try not to think about
things like legacies too much.

00:14:38.026 --> 00:14:41.682
It's not helpful for actually
maybe getting the work done.

00:14:41.682 --> 00:14:43.841
All right, OK.

00:14:43.841 --> 00:14:47.856
These are actually the original questions
from the Ask Me Anything Request,

00:14:47.856 --> 00:14:50.832
and I did answer all of them, but
I'll answer them now verbally,

00:14:50.832 --> 00:14:53.514
just because it seems a little
bit more natural for me.

00:14:53.514 --> 00:14:54.952
"When you're recording
your first lectures,

00:14:54.952 --> 00:14:57.879
"do you have any particular
student you've made in your mind

00:14:57.879 --> 00:14:59.254
"that you are talking to?"

00:14:59.254 --> 00:15:03.689
"Does that student change depending
on the video's difficulty or message?"

00:15:03.689 --> 00:15:08.932
Frankly, I imagine how I was when
I first tried to address the topic,

00:15:08.932 --> 00:15:11.021
the questions that jumped in my head,

00:15:11.021 --> 00:15:12.691
the type of things that
I would have liked to see

00:15:12.691 --> 00:15:15.725
that would have interested
me in the topic.

00:15:15.725 --> 00:15:17.677
So it's kind of me,

00:15:17.677 --> 00:15:23.012
and I don't think that there is ...

00:15:23.012 --> 00:15:24.997
I don't have a lot of data to
go one way or another on this,

00:15:24.997 --> 00:15:26.492
but my sense, and I guess,

00:15:26.492 --> 00:15:29.904
to some degree, the popularity
of the videos speak to this,

00:15:29.904 --> 00:15:35.214
is that 5th graders want to be spoken
to the same way that a 9th grader,

00:15:35.214 --> 00:15:36.955
or that a 30-year-old
wants to be spoken to.

00:15:36.955 --> 00:15:38.664
They want to be spoken to with respect.

00:15:38.664 --> 00:15:41.882
They want a conversational tone.

00:15:41.882 --> 00:15:47.206
They don't want to be talked down to.

00:15:47.206 --> 00:15:49.133
They like things that are interesting.

00:15:49.133 --> 00:15:50.716
The things that are
interesting to a 50-year-old

00:15:50.716 --> 00:15:55.315
are interesting,
oftentimes, to a 5th grader.

00:15:55.315 --> 00:15:59.274
I think you'll see a very similar tone
if you go from the basic arithmetic video

00:15:59.274 --> 00:16:02.836
on Khan Academy all the way to videos on
the financial crisis or vector calculus

00:16:02.836 --> 00:16:04.964
or differential equations
or linear algebra,

00:16:04.964 --> 00:16:06.690
they all essentially have the same tone,

00:16:06.690 --> 00:16:09.678
which is the tone that I'm
speaking with right now.

00:16:09.678 --> 00:16:13.145
Number 2, "How much preparation goes
into the lecture in terms of research?

00:16:13.145 --> 00:16:15.010
"Do you have notes with
you as you lecture?

00:16:15.010 --> 00:16:17.611
"Do you consult people
for certain subjects?"

00:16:17.611 --> 00:16:20.002
Once again, completely
depending on the lecture,

00:16:20.002 --> 00:16:22.873
if I'm just doing a work
example in, say, algebra,

00:16:22.873 --> 00:16:26.196
I literally just do it in real time.

00:16:26.196 --> 00:16:32.692
For 95, 99% of the lectures
or videos, I don't have notes.

00:16:32.692 --> 00:16:34.954
Sometimes, especially in
history I've done this,

00:16:34.954 --> 00:16:36.192
I have a little Word document.

00:16:36.192 --> 00:16:39.521
I'll have two monitors and have a
little Word document on one monitor

00:16:39.521 --> 00:16:42.937
that I retype all of the names
so that I don't misspell them

00:16:42.937 --> 00:16:44.564
because that is my Achilles' heel.

00:16:44.564 --> 00:16:46.844
I have trouble with spelling,

00:16:46.844 --> 00:16:49.246
and it's embarrassing if
you're trying to look smart

00:16:49.246 --> 00:16:51.033
when you're speaking about
the French Revolution

00:16:51.033 --> 00:16:53.815
then you forgot how to spell "Napoleon."

00:16:53.815 --> 00:16:56.286
So I definitely do try to do that.

00:16:56.286 --> 00:16:56.781
OK.

00:16:56.781 --> 00:16:59.498
"Do you consult people
on certain subjects?"

00:16:59.498 --> 00:17:00.678
It's not happened a lot.

00:17:00.678 --> 00:17:03.605
I think every now and then, I've tried.

00:17:03.605 --> 00:17:06.992
It has helped a few times, especially
in some of the immunology videos.

00:17:06.992 --> 00:17:09.397
I had a friend, Micah Luftig,
who is a professor at Duke,

00:17:09.397 --> 00:17:11.825
that I clarified some things with.

00:17:11.825 --> 00:17:14.928
But it comes up sometimes in
conversation at parties and things,

00:17:14.928 --> 00:17:22.675
but for the most part, I'm able to
clarify my thinking fairly independently.

00:17:22.675 --> 00:17:23.966
Three, "If you had the opportunity

00:17:23.966 --> 00:17:26.168
"to talk to the president
about the education system,

00:17:26.168 --> 00:17:28.525
"what would be the one thing you
wish you would understand most?"

00:17:28.525 --> 00:17:32.511
And I did answer this, and
in my answer, I said that

00:17:32.511 --> 00:17:34.802
making sure that people are
clear on what we're trying to do,

00:17:34.802 --> 00:17:39.307
that I feel so many times,
the conversation is on high
school graduation rates

00:17:39.307 --> 00:17:42.245
or college graduation
rates or college degrees

00:17:42.245 --> 00:17:44.053
that people are losing
sight of what's important,

00:17:44.053 --> 00:17:47.676
which is everyone should be a
happy and productive individual.

00:17:47.676 --> 00:17:49.473
The reason why I think those
are sometimes a disconnect

00:17:49.473 --> 00:17:52.515
because people are saying, "Oh, let's get
people college degrees no matter what,"

00:17:52.515 --> 00:17:56.673
without a lot of scrutiny of,
well, are they getting things

00:17:56.673 --> 00:17:57.619
through that college experience

00:17:57.619 --> 00:17:59.898
that is likely to make
them happy and productive?

00:17:59.914 --> 00:18:01.221
Sometimes they're getting
into a lot of debt.

00:18:01.221 --> 00:18:03.795
Sometimes they're not learning
things or getting credentials

00:18:03.795 --> 00:18:09.651
that will help them integrate or get
jobs or whatever the end goals might be.

00:18:09.651 --> 00:18:11.752
And so I think the important
thing is to think about

00:18:11.752 --> 00:18:14.631
what we're trying to get is
happy and productive people

00:18:14.631 --> 00:18:16.935
and then think about how do we get there.

00:18:16.935 --> 00:18:20.655
I think, I'll talk about this later
on, is I think the way we get there

00:18:20.655 --> 00:18:22.803
is we have credentials
that are independent

00:18:22.803 --> 00:18:28.977
of any particular way of learning the
material, and very rigorous credentials.

00:18:28.977 --> 00:18:31.706
I think if you do that, it
allows people to prepare for them

00:18:31.706 --> 00:18:33.389
in any way that they see fit.

00:18:33.389 --> 00:18:36.081
They can get those, I would
call them, "microcredentials"

00:18:36.081 --> 00:18:37.225
relative to a college degree.

00:18:37.225 --> 00:18:40.014
A college degree, you have
to take all of these courses.

00:18:40.014 --> 00:18:40.495
What do you take?

00:18:40.495 --> 00:18:43.655
You take 40 courses on average over
the course of your college career,

00:18:43.655 --> 00:18:46.344
and you have this GPA that
somehow encapsulates them,

00:18:46.344 --> 00:18:50.536
averages how you did on history with how
you did on math and computer science,

00:18:50.536 --> 00:18:53.437
and that doesn't give a lot
of information to employers.

00:18:53.437 --> 00:18:55.006
They don't even know how ...

00:18:55.006 --> 00:18:57.251
And I'm not saying that employers
are the most important thing.

00:18:57.251 --> 00:18:59.604
It's also important that
people have satisfying lives.

00:18:59.604 --> 00:19:01.359
But at the end of the day,
if they don't have a job,

00:19:01.359 --> 00:19:07.032
it's hard to focus on much else,
and I've been there, so yes.

00:19:07.032 --> 00:19:10.824
Number 4, "Could you cite examples
of foreign education systems

00:19:10.824 --> 00:19:12.725
"which you think the U.S. should mimic?"

00:19:12.725 --> 00:19:14.021
No.

00:19:14.021 --> 00:19:19.083
I think, and I answered this in text,

00:19:19.083 --> 00:19:25.175
there are education systems where the
kids do better on standardized tests,

00:19:25.175 --> 00:19:27.366
on certain standardized tests.

00:19:27.366 --> 00:19:34.929
I know from personal experience that
some of those countries aren't as large

00:19:34.929 --> 00:19:39.678
and aren't as educating as large of a
population as we are in the United States.

00:19:39.678 --> 00:19:42.688
And frankly, at the end of the
day, the United States still is

00:19:42.688 --> 00:19:44.870
the engine of innovation for the world.

00:19:44.870 --> 00:19:47.209
It is where, I mean if you
look in the last 20 years,

00:19:47.209 --> 00:19:50.180
all of the major innovations,
a surprising number of them

00:19:50.180 --> 00:19:53.836
show up from the 5% of the
world that is American.

00:19:53.836 --> 00:19:57.967
And so I don't think it's about
Americans emulating other people.

00:19:57.967 --> 00:20:00.974
I actually think it's about turning
the American education system

00:20:00.974 --> 00:20:03.728
into a more American education system.

00:20:03.728 --> 00:20:06.404
Right now, it's essentially
a Prussian education system.

00:20:06.404 --> 00:20:09.207
The Prussians invented, and we
wanted a universal education,

00:20:09.207 --> 00:20:10.655
so we have to do it
cheaply and efficiently,

00:20:10.655 --> 00:20:14.241
so let's have kids in lockstep
in these age-based grades.

00:20:14.241 --> 00:20:16.082
They all move together at the same pace.

00:20:16.082 --> 00:20:20.602
At 8th grade, we start tracking
students into one track or another.

00:20:20.618 --> 00:20:22.562
But it doesn't emphasize creativity.

00:20:22.562 --> 00:20:24.692
It doesn't emphasize open-ended thinking.

00:20:24.692 --> 00:20:28.947
And so I'd like to see a more American
model where students have independence.

00:20:28.947 --> 00:20:30.018
They're learning at their own pace.

00:20:30.018 --> 00:20:31.809
They have taken control
of their own learning.

00:20:31.809 --> 00:20:36.505
They can decide how to achieve a
very high, a very rigorous credential

00:20:36.505 --> 00:20:38.578
in any way that they see fit,

00:20:38.578 --> 00:20:40.688
whether it is going to
a formal institution,

00:20:40.688 --> 00:20:42.088
whether it's doing an apprenticeship,

00:20:42.088 --> 00:20:45.629
whether it's some combination
of all of the above.

00:20:45.629 --> 00:20:48.673
So no, I wouldn't copy any other country.

00:20:48.673 --> 00:20:52.479
I would make the American
education system more American.

00:20:52.479 --> 00:20:53.239
All right.

00:20:53.239 --> 00:20:56.125
"Who are a few people you respect greatly
in terms of character achievement?"

00:20:56.125 --> 00:20:58.926
I listed them over here.

00:20:58.926 --> 00:21:02.464
Mark Twain, I just think he is hilarious
and brilliant and whatever else.

00:21:02.464 --> 00:21:06.434
Muhammad Yunus, he is addressing,

00:21:06.434 --> 00:21:10.201
boldly addressing a world problem
that many people, many cynical people

00:21:10.201 --> 00:21:12.511
would have thought was hard to address,

00:21:12.511 --> 00:21:16.534
and he's done it outside of the
realm of formal institutions,

00:21:16.534 --> 00:21:20.946
or he's created his own institution to do
it outside of the realm of governments,

00:21:20.946 --> 00:21:23.183
although he does coordinate
with governments.

00:21:23.183 --> 00:21:27.108
Bill Cosby, I just love listening
to him, and I think he's brilliant.

00:21:27.108 --> 00:21:29.640
Richard Feynman, one of my inspirations,

00:21:29.640 --> 00:21:32.653
he made me want to be a
theoretical physicist at one point.

00:21:32.653 --> 00:21:37.177
Bill Gates, who I've had the ...

00:21:37.177 --> 00:21:38.653
I don't want to sound cheesy listing him

00:21:38.653 --> 00:21:41.439
because he is obviously
one of our big supporters,

00:21:41.439 --> 00:21:42.923
and he is also a controversial figure.

00:21:42.923 --> 00:21:47.509
For better or for worse, some people
love him, some people hate him,

00:21:47.509 --> 00:21:49.791
but especially after I've
had a chance to meet him,

00:21:49.791 --> 00:21:54.825
I can testify that he is ...

00:21:54.825 --> 00:21:56.677
He has redefined philanthropy,

00:21:56.677 --> 00:22:01.688
and he is really, as
rationally as possible,

00:22:01.688 --> 00:22:05.078
trying to save as many lives as possible.

00:22:05.078 --> 00:22:07.942
And when I say "save lives," it
means 1) keep them from dying,

00:22:07.942 --> 00:22:11.657
but assuming that they are living, giving
them as much opportunity as possible.

00:22:11.657 --> 00:22:13.811
For him, it's not about his ego.

00:22:13.811 --> 00:22:15.809
It's not about putting
his names on things.

00:22:15.809 --> 00:22:19.683
It's literally about are we
doing what we need to do?

00:22:19.683 --> 00:22:21.802
And so I think it's incredibly powerful.

00:22:21.802 --> 00:22:23.984
Having met him a few times now,

00:22:23.984 --> 00:22:27.824
I could tell you it's amazing,
considering the level that he is in life,

00:22:27.824 --> 00:22:30.671
how deep he's willing to
go into different subjects,

00:22:30.671 --> 00:22:37.519
that he is naturally curious,
naturally wants to dig deep into issues

00:22:37.519 --> 00:22:41.675
and understand them for himself as
opposed to having other people tell him

00:22:41.675 --> 00:22:42.948
necessarily what the answer is.

00:22:42.948 --> 00:22:45.371
He wants to make sure that
it feels right to him.

00:22:45.371 --> 00:22:50.153
And so I respected him
before but even more so now.

00:22:50.153 --> 00:22:52.970
I sometimes find it weird
when people criticize him,

00:22:52.970 --> 00:22:54.923
especially for his philanthropic
work, because literally,

00:22:54.923 --> 00:22:58.531
hundreds of thousands of people
are alive because of him.

00:22:58.531 --> 00:23:02.403
Number 3, "If you had the opportunity ...

00:23:02.403 --> 00:23:03.281
OK, no, I already read that.

00:23:03.281 --> 00:23:05.891
Let's see, "Cite examples."

00:23:05.891 --> 00:23:06.252
Let's see.

00:23:06.252 --> 00:23:08.846
"Would you ever seek a government
position involved in education?"

00:23:08.846 --> 00:23:10.479
"Secretary of Education?"

00:23:10.479 --> 00:23:12.073
As I said, no.

00:23:12.073 --> 00:23:17.492
No disrespect to that
position, but I just,

00:23:17.492 --> 00:23:22.483
I think I'm better off being close to the
road or where the rubber hits the road

00:23:22.483 --> 00:23:26.659
and working on the content,
and that's where I feel best.

00:23:26.659 --> 00:23:29.190
7) "In the future, would
you like video lectures

00:23:29.190 --> 00:23:30.967
"to be the primary source
of receiving information?

00:23:30.967 --> 00:23:36.664
"Who would you like to see
making certain videos?"

00:23:36.664 --> 00:23:37.674
When I say "primary,"

00:23:37.674 --> 00:23:40.501
well, when it's the primary
source of receiving information,

00:23:40.501 --> 00:23:42.070
I don't know if I'd
necessarily agree with that.

00:23:42.070 --> 00:23:46.997
I view videos as one source of
receiving information when you need it.

00:23:46.997 --> 00:23:50.087
I'd actually prefer a lot
of the learning to happen

00:23:50.087 --> 00:23:52.645
as people experiment and work on things.

00:23:52.645 --> 00:23:55.496
What I think the videos do is they take,

00:23:55.496 --> 00:23:58.632
they really throw into question
the idea of passive lectures

00:23:58.632 --> 00:23:59.968
because you can ...

00:23:59.968 --> 00:24:02.607
I had argued that on-demand video
is better in almost every way

00:24:02.607 --> 00:24:04.347
than the traditional passive lecture,

00:24:04.347 --> 00:24:08.211
and it frees up time to do
more of that hands-on learning.

00:24:08.211 --> 00:24:10.608
But in terms of people
making certain videos,

00:24:10.608 --> 00:24:11.844
we're looking for them.

00:24:11.844 --> 00:24:14.805
There are a few celebrities
actually we started talking to,

00:24:14.805 --> 00:24:15.988
and we might be able to convince them,

00:24:15.988 --> 00:24:17.642
and I think they'll be quite good.

00:24:17.642 --> 00:24:21.450
But we're open to anyone who
shows a passion for the subject,

00:24:21.450 --> 00:24:24.504
a deep understanding, and
they're fun to listen to.

00:24:24.504 --> 00:24:26.885
When I saw Beth and Steven
do those art history videos,

00:24:26.885 --> 00:24:27.941
I immediately said, wow.

00:24:27.941 --> 00:24:29.634
This is how I wish I
had learned art history.

00:24:29.634 --> 00:24:31.695
I keep wanting to watch more
and more of these videos.

00:24:31.695 --> 00:24:32.478
They were funny.

00:24:32.478 --> 00:24:33.500
They were smart.

00:24:33.500 --> 00:24:35.148
They were conversational.

00:24:35.148 --> 00:24:38.706
They were focused on the content
as opposed to the teacher,

00:24:38.706 --> 00:24:42.789
so that's ... we kind of
brought them on board.

00:24:42.789 --> 00:24:44.101
We're very open to more of that,

00:24:44.101 --> 00:24:46.603
and we'll be announcing
another individual very soon,

00:24:46.603 --> 00:24:48.254
who, she's done some amazing things,

00:24:48.254 --> 00:24:51.202
and we look forward to
announce that as well.

00:24:51.202 --> 00:24:51.908
OK.

00:24:51.908 --> 00:24:54.246
"You've shown the world how
the teaching of math, science,

00:24:54.246 --> 00:24:56.501
"and a little bit of history
can be changed for the better.

00:24:56.501 --> 00:24:59.189
"Do you have ideas for
the teaching of English

00:24:59.189 --> 00:25:02.426
"or the native tongue of wherever
these videos are watched?"

00:25:02.426 --> 00:25:04.641
We have some ideas.

00:25:04.641 --> 00:25:05.971
We're not implementing them right now.

00:25:05.971 --> 00:25:08.637
I think things like grammar and
vocabulary are a natural fit

00:25:08.637 --> 00:25:10.930
for some of the exercises we have now.

00:25:10.930 --> 00:25:14.738
I think videos could
obviously be powerful as well.

00:25:14.738 --> 00:25:16.021
And I think things like writing,

00:25:16.021 --> 00:25:17.960
there could be some element
of peer-to-peer interaction,

00:25:17.960 --> 00:25:19.642
peer-to-peer assessment.

00:25:19.642 --> 00:25:23.463
And I think for things like language, in
particular, especially spoken language,

00:25:23.463 --> 00:25:27.458
I think there could be an element of
things like Skype or Google Hangouts

00:25:27.458 --> 00:25:30.485
for people to actually interact with
people who speak that other language

00:25:30.485 --> 00:25:34.691
and get, have a version of
immersion that does not require you

00:25:34.691 --> 00:25:35.815
to get on a plane.

00:25:35.815 --> 00:25:38.525
But we're not able to tackle
them in the very short term,

00:25:38.525 --> 00:25:42.662
but hopefully, eventually, we will
be able to get to those things.

00:25:42.662 --> 00:25:45.246
That's a summary of all those.

00:25:45.246 --> 00:25:45.790
OK.

00:25:45.790 --> 00:25:46.826
"Accounting videos saved my grades."

00:25:46.826 --> 00:25:49.231
We actually do hope to do
a much deeper accounting.

00:25:49.231 --> 00:25:52.156
I eventually want it so that
you can get most of the skills

00:25:52.156 --> 00:25:56.532
or all of the skills that an MBA
would learn from Khan Academy.

00:25:56.532 --> 00:25:57.373
OK.

00:25:57.373 --> 00:26:00.762
"How do I get my kids to enjoy
learning about math and science?

00:26:00.762 --> 00:26:03.238
"My husband and I always
struggled with these subjects,

00:26:03.238 --> 00:26:06.342
"so we have no interest in them and
are not proficient in them at all.

00:26:06.342 --> 00:26:08.002
"We don't want our kids
to have the same struggle.

00:26:08.002 --> 00:26:08.947
"Advice?"

00:26:08.947 --> 00:26:09.775
And I wrote this down,

00:26:09.775 --> 00:26:16.883
and the best advice I could give is these
two parents should immerse themselves

00:26:16.883 --> 00:26:19.233
in math and science and
realize that it is fascinating,

00:26:19.233 --> 00:26:22.638
and now, there are things like
the Khan Academy that can get them

00:26:22.638 --> 00:26:25.691
up to speed in a
non-stressful environment.

00:26:25.691 --> 00:26:28.992
I think if they did that, they would
discover that they do have an interest

00:26:28.992 --> 00:26:30.369
in math and science,

00:26:30.369 --> 00:26:34.819
and as soon as they do that, it will
change the culture in their home,

00:26:34.819 --> 00:26:37.556
and their kids will see that,
"Wow, Mom and Dad are doing it

00:26:37.556 --> 00:26:39.247
"even though no one is forcing them to.

00:26:39.247 --> 00:26:40.306
"I want to do that too."

00:26:40.306 --> 00:26:44.012
And they'll have wonderful
conversations about galactic collisions

00:26:44.012 --> 00:26:47.000
and acids and bases and
who knows what else?

00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:47.490
OK.

00:26:47.490 --> 00:26:48.186
Let's go on.

00:26:48.186 --> 00:26:50.010
I'm already at 26 minutes.

00:26:50.010 --> 00:26:51.811
Maybe I'll go for another 10 minutes.

00:26:51.811 --> 00:26:53.109
All right.

00:26:53.109 --> 00:26:54.222
All right.

00:26:54.222 --> 00:26:55.932
"My name is Abhinav, and I am 8 years old.

00:26:55.932 --> 00:26:57.579
"I am doing this with
permission of my Dad.

00:26:57.579 --> 00:26:59.347
"I like Khan Academy and use it a lot.

00:26:59.347 --> 00:27:02.936
"My question is why do you have
questions and tests for only math

00:27:02.936 --> 00:27:04.993
"and not other subjects?"

00:27:04.993 --> 00:27:08.990
Brilliant question, Abhinav, and
that is on our plate, and we are ...

00:27:08.990 --> 00:27:12.660
Our goal is ... Math is a core subject
that gives a lot of people trouble,

00:27:12.660 --> 00:27:15.766
even though we think most people
are capable of doing it very well

00:27:15.766 --> 00:27:17.379
if they're given the opportunity,

00:27:17.379 --> 00:27:18.848
and so that's what we're tackling first,

00:27:18.848 --> 00:27:21.094
although the videos go well beyond that.

00:27:21.094 --> 00:27:25.737
But do expect to see much
more than just mathematics

00:27:25.737 --> 00:27:27.447
in the not too far off future.

00:27:27.447 --> 00:27:30.171
I would say in the next year,
by the time you're 9 years old,

00:27:30.171 --> 00:27:32.051
hopefully that won't be too late for you,

00:27:32.051 --> 00:27:35.911
you will have things like finance and
physics and chemistry and accounting

00:27:35.911 --> 00:27:40.294
and logic and computer science
and many, many other things.

00:27:40.294 --> 00:27:43.758
Hopefully, you won't find
it boring as a 9-year old.

00:27:43.758 --> 00:27:44.352
OK.

00:27:44.352 --> 00:27:45.977
Let's see.

00:27:45.977 --> 00:27:47.684
"How would you compare the
value of in-person lectures

00:27:47.684 --> 00:27:50.380
"to that of online learning?"

00:27:50.380 --> 00:27:52.038
Like many things, it depends.

00:27:52.038 --> 00:27:55.901
I think in-person lectures, even
large ones, can be very powerful

00:27:55.901 --> 00:27:58.422
when there is a shared experience,
when it's an inspiration,

00:27:58.422 --> 00:28:01.000
when it's kind of an idea.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:05.543
I think it's worse when
you're covering dense material

00:28:05.543 --> 00:28:11.295
that different people will
internalize at different rates,

00:28:11.295 --> 00:28:13.968
and different people have
different levels of preparation.

00:28:13.968 --> 00:28:16.848
Then when you do this
one-pace-fits-all lecture,

00:28:16.848 --> 00:28:20.962
I think it's not the most
productive use of having 300-person,

00:28:20.962 --> 00:28:23.456
300 people or even 50
people on the same room.

00:28:23.456 --> 00:28:28.353
I think that is better served by having
on-demand video and self-paced exercises

00:28:28.353 --> 00:28:32.320
and then using the physical time to
actually interact with each other

00:28:32.320 --> 00:28:35.182
or actually build things or
actually mentor each other.

00:28:35.182 --> 00:28:37.933
And then, "How was presenting at TED?

00:28:37.933 --> 00:28:40.455
"Who was the most
interesting person you met?"

00:28:40.455 --> 00:28:42.917
TED was surreal.

00:28:42.917 --> 00:28:46.357
There were a lot of interesting
people there, as you can imagine.

00:28:46.357 --> 00:28:50.461
I guess maybe one of the
most interesting moments,

00:28:50.461 --> 00:28:54.254
I got out of my hotel room one
morning, and I was on the 14th floor,

00:28:54.254 --> 00:29:00.048
and I got into the elevator, and then
I saw this fairly tall individual say,

00:29:00.063 --> 00:29:02.210
"Hello, Salman," and he
just read my name tag.

00:29:02.210 --> 00:29:04.233
He didn't know who I was.

00:29:04.233 --> 00:29:05.223
I looked up, and ...

00:29:05.223 --> 00:29:07.547
and I looked up because he's very
tall, and it was Ashton Kutcher.

00:29:07.547 --> 00:29:09.507
And then I looked to my side,

00:29:09.507 --> 00:29:11.636
and right on the other
side of me was Demi Moore,

00:29:11.636 --> 00:29:13.662
and then we just went
down the next 14 floors,

00:29:13.662 --> 00:29:15.662
and I didn't really know what
to say, so I just looked down,

00:29:15.662 --> 00:29:20.168
but that was probably, that was
an interesting moment for me,

00:29:20.168 --> 00:29:22.840
but there were other crazy things at TED.

00:29:22.840 --> 00:29:23.657
OK.

00:29:23.657 --> 00:29:24.212
Let's see.

00:29:24.212 --> 00:29:28.148
And as I said in the thing, I was actually
running 104 fever that night before,

00:29:28.148 --> 00:29:30.934
and I was going to ... I was actually
thinking about even calling 911

00:29:30.934 --> 00:29:34.533
because I was really just delusional
and going nuts that night.

00:29:34.533 --> 00:29:36.898
But my wife showed up the next morning.

00:29:36.898 --> 00:29:44.576
She is a doctor, gave me a
ton of acetaminophen, and
I was good to go on stage.

00:29:44.576 --> 00:29:46.143
And so, "How was it when Bill Gates says,

00:29:46.143 --> 00:29:48.259
"You're taking a peek into
the future of education?"

00:29:48.259 --> 00:29:51.681
"I would have been
peeing in my pants, man."

00:29:51.681 --> 00:29:55.224
And as I said, that wasn't
the first time we had met,

00:29:55.224 --> 00:29:58.517
so I'd gotten somewhat used to
him, although it's still surreal,

00:29:58.517 --> 00:30:01.719
and it was very surreal
to be on stage with him.

00:30:01.719 --> 00:30:08.158
I think the first time I met him,
it was closer to that scenario,

00:30:08.158 --> 00:30:11.985
but yes, it was pretty amazing.

00:30:11.985 --> 00:30:13.158
OK.

00:30:13.158 --> 00:30:14.965
Let's see.

00:30:14.965 --> 00:30:15.770
Let's see.

00:30:15.770 --> 00:30:17.676
There are some amazing things here.

00:30:17.676 --> 00:30:19.918
"What do you think of MIT's
new online course system,

00:30:19.918 --> 00:30:21.623
"especially given that you're
the commencement speaker?"

00:30:21.623 --> 00:30:24.772
which I find once again surreal.

00:30:24.772 --> 00:30:27.140
A lot of this is just surreal to me.

00:30:27.140 --> 00:30:29.900
But I think the poster
is referring to MITx,

00:30:29.900 --> 00:30:33.305
where they're going to start doing
online classes, not just videos,

00:30:33.305 --> 00:30:36.351
allowing MIT students to work at their
own pace so that they can use class time

00:30:36.351 --> 00:30:38.984
for more interactivity,
more project-based things,

00:30:38.984 --> 00:30:40.805
and then they'll let
the whole world benefit

00:30:40.805 --> 00:30:43.970
from those virtual self-paced lessons.

00:30:43.970 --> 00:30:44.980
I'm a big fan of that.

00:30:44.980 --> 00:30:46.624
I think that, by itself,
is a game changer.

00:30:46.624 --> 00:30:48.939
But the real big game changer
is that they're going to allow,

00:30:48.939 --> 00:30:51.378
they're going to have proctored
examinations that people could take,

00:30:51.378 --> 00:30:53.000
it sounds like, for very little money

00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:54.823
to show that they really
understood the concepts.

00:30:54.823 --> 00:30:57.134
They're going to call
them "MITx credentials."

00:30:57.134 --> 00:31:01.449
I think that could be a super huge game
changer and really spread shock waves

00:31:01.449 --> 00:31:03.301
through higher education because

00:31:03.301 --> 00:31:05.982
if someone takes the MITx
credential in computer science

00:31:05.982 --> 00:31:10.305
or the MITx credential in
algorithms and they do well on it,

00:31:10.305 --> 00:31:13.030
and that credential really
is at a very rigorous level,

00:31:13.030 --> 00:31:14.530
I would interview those people.

00:31:14.530 --> 00:31:17.523
I would value them as much
as someone with a high GPA

00:31:17.523 --> 00:31:21.673
from a computer science program.

00:31:21.673 --> 00:31:23.443
Yeah, I think it could be pretty powerful.

00:31:23.443 --> 00:31:25.907
You could start seeing people
who maybe don't go to college,

00:31:25.907 --> 00:31:27.670
and I'm not going to
advocate one or the other.

00:31:27.670 --> 00:31:29.189
I love my college experience,

00:31:29.189 --> 00:31:32.665
although I don't think it should
be a mandatory experience.

00:31:32.665 --> 00:31:35.513
But you could imagine a high
school student who shows

00:31:35.513 --> 00:31:38.121
that they mastered all that stuff, and
if they choose that they want to work

00:31:38.121 --> 00:31:42.402
before going to college, they could
probably get a job at a very good company,

00:31:42.402 --> 00:31:47.102
if they showed that they knew some
of that material at an earlier stage

00:31:47.102 --> 00:31:48.700
and they didn't need to
go to college for it.

00:31:48.700 --> 00:31:49.993
In fact, you'd probably
give them bonus points

00:31:49.993 --> 00:31:52.930
that they were capable of learning
the material somewhat independently,

00:31:52.930 --> 00:31:56.616
that it didn't have to be ... they didn't
have to learn it in a formal structure

00:31:56.616 --> 00:31:59.704
because frankly, at the end of
the day, you want the people that,

00:31:59.704 --> 00:32:01.971
when they are 30 years old
or they're 40 years old

00:32:01.971 --> 00:32:03.821
and they don't have a
formal academic structure,

00:32:03.821 --> 00:32:06.535
they can still learn new
things because we know

00:32:06.535 --> 00:32:08.138
that in the next 10 years or 20 years,

00:32:08.138 --> 00:32:12.907
there's going to be tons
of new things to learn.

00:32:12.907 --> 00:32:14.526
OK.

00:32:14.526 --> 00:32:15.462
All right.

00:32:15.462 --> 00:32:17.147
Let's see.

00:32:17.147 --> 00:32:18.834
There's a lot of stuff.

00:32:18.834 --> 00:32:22.132
"If you could reform public
education, what would you do?"

00:32:22.132 --> 00:32:28.979
As I mentioned, I think the key here is
to provide really powerful test cases

00:32:28.979 --> 00:32:33.601
and really powerful tools that allow
the test cases to be replicable.

00:32:33.601 --> 00:32:36.040
There are amazing cases of
charter schools and public schools

00:32:36.040 --> 00:32:39.647
doing amazing things, but
it's hard to replicate them.

00:32:39.647 --> 00:32:43.603
I think the combination of doing
things like the Khan Academy virtually,

00:32:43.603 --> 00:32:45.801
when people can use it
however they see fit,

00:32:45.801 --> 00:32:51.220
and you put that in combination with
creating examples of how it's best used,

00:32:51.220 --> 00:32:55.529
and you show that the students in those
examples are not just 5% or 10% better,

00:32:55.529 --> 00:32:58.954
that they are, by any way you
measure them, dramatically better,

00:32:58.954 --> 00:33:02.481
I think that example setting can
create a groundswell of change,

00:33:02.481 --> 00:33:03.384
but I don't know.

00:33:03.384 --> 00:33:06.324
We'll see what actually happens.

00:33:06.324 --> 00:33:10.945
"What's made you study
for so many degrees?"

00:33:10.945 --> 00:33:15.677
As I said, I am, I continue
to be very naturally curious,

00:33:15.677 --> 00:33:20.379
and when I was at MIT, it was almost
hard not to register for more classes,

00:33:20.379 --> 00:33:21.835
and so I did.

00:33:21.835 --> 00:33:23.431
I registered for as many as I could,

00:33:23.431 --> 00:33:26.712
and I guess you end up getting
a lot of degrees that way.

00:33:26.712 --> 00:33:28.150
Let's see.

00:33:28.150 --> 00:33:30.041
"What were your grades
like in high school?"

00:33:30.041 --> 00:33:31.891
As I mentioned, they were good.

00:33:31.891 --> 00:33:32.531
OK.

00:33:32.531 --> 00:33:35.454
Let's see.

00:33:35.454 --> 00:33:36.015
Let's see.

00:33:36.015 --> 00:33:38.179
"How would you respond to the idea
that some people believe your videos

00:33:38.179 --> 00:33:40.682
"are a replacement or an improvement
on traditional education?

00:33:40.682 --> 00:33:43.844
"I've heard critics caution that people
relying on the Academy to teach them

00:33:43.844 --> 00:33:46.986
"are doing 20th century learning,

00:33:46.986 --> 00:33:50.030
"memorization and drilling with formulas
and ideas without real-world application

00:33:50.030 --> 00:33:51.986
"instead of 21st century learning,

00:33:51.986 --> 00:33:54.521
"application of concepts
to solve new problems.

00:33:54.521 --> 00:33:55.698
"I could see both things
as being valuable,

00:33:55.698 --> 00:33:57.341
"but I've always wanted to ask you
where do you see the Khan Academy

00:33:57.341 --> 00:34:01.670
"fitting in the context of a
person's complete education?"

00:34:01.670 --> 00:34:06.631
I think the people who believe
that we are trying to do ...

00:34:06.631 --> 00:34:08.958
we're backwards-looking
in how we're learning,

00:34:08.958 --> 00:34:14.636
I think they believe that we think
that the videos are the complete thing,

00:34:14.636 --> 00:34:17.809
and what we're saying is that
the videos are an enabler

00:34:17.809 --> 00:34:20.960
to make the complete thing
happen in the classroom.

00:34:20.960 --> 00:34:25.587
And so to some degree,
the fact that we can do,

00:34:25.587 --> 00:34:28.996
the fact that we can
automate some of the stuff

00:34:28.996 --> 00:34:31.360
that traditionally was done in a lecture,

00:34:31.360 --> 00:34:33.452
that what we're doing is

00:34:33.452 --> 00:34:37.167
we're making hopefully the
traditional passive lecture obsolete.

00:34:37.167 --> 00:34:41.832
I think there is still some value in
getting information in that way sometimes,

00:34:41.832 --> 00:34:44.528
when you can pause it and repeat,
it becomes that much better,

00:34:44.528 --> 00:34:48.021
but what it does is it frees
up time to do other things.

00:34:48.021 --> 00:34:53.171
My vision of the school of the future
is kids spending most of their time

00:34:53.171 --> 00:34:56.230
doing actual exploring things,
doing open-ended things,

00:34:56.230 --> 00:34:58.031
doing creative things.

00:34:58.031 --> 00:35:02.191
I think you'll find that not just
us and the people in our team

00:35:02.191 --> 00:35:05.178
but most of our supporters are
actually the people who are defining

00:35:05.178 --> 00:35:07.637
what a 21st century job actually is.

00:35:07.637 --> 00:35:10.547
And we talk a lot about what
are we looking for in people?

00:35:10.547 --> 00:35:16.414
How do we find those people who
can write creative programs,

00:35:16.414 --> 00:35:20.949
who can design things, who can define
new things that never existed before?

00:35:20.949 --> 00:35:22.064
And that's what we think about

00:35:22.064 --> 00:35:26.650
when we try to figure out what
the Khan Academy should become.

00:35:26.650 --> 00:35:30.270
In terms of memorizing
and drilling, the videos,

00:35:30.270 --> 00:35:34.915
I try, to great pains actually, to
minimize any form of memorization.

00:35:34.915 --> 00:35:36.571
I actually even ...

00:35:36.571 --> 00:35:41.212
and I hope far less than even what
goes on in most traditional classrooms.

00:35:41.212 --> 00:35:43.647
I think most of the people
who've liked the Khan Academy

00:35:43.647 --> 00:35:46.578
I think like it because it
is so focused on intuition.

00:35:46.578 --> 00:35:50.534
It is so focused on understanding
things at a deeper level

00:35:50.534 --> 00:35:56.352
so that the formulas just
become almost common sense.

00:35:56.352 --> 00:36:01.635
So yeah, so I don't necessarily ...

00:36:01.635 --> 00:36:04.872
Maybe I'm wrong here, but I don't
think they're necessarily perceiving us

00:36:04.872 --> 00:36:07.063
the way that we perceive ourselves.

00:36:07.063 --> 00:36:10.696
In terms of a replacement or an
improvement on traditional education,

00:36:10.696 --> 00:36:14.653
I do believe that the traditional
model, as I said, the Prussian model,

00:36:14.653 --> 00:36:19.043
everyone moving together lockstep
in these age-based cohorts,

00:36:19.043 --> 00:36:21.337
is not helpful.

00:36:21.337 --> 00:36:25.641
And so I would like to see a more, as
I said before, American model emerge,

00:36:25.641 --> 00:36:28.012
and we'll see what happens.

00:36:28.012 --> 00:36:29.325
"Who were your favorite teachers?"

00:36:29.325 --> 00:36:30.302
I wrote that here.

00:36:30.302 --> 00:36:32.953
I'll do one more question.

00:36:33.491 --> 00:36:35.656
I'll do one more question
that might be interesting.

00:36:35.656 --> 00:36:38.286
I'm starting to lose my throat.

00:36:38.286 --> 00:36:39.525
OK.

00:36:39.525 --> 00:36:40.299
Let's see.

00:36:40.299 --> 00:36:42.539
"How much time do you spend
working on videos a day?

00:36:42.539 --> 00:36:44.219
"How taxing is it?"

00:36:44.219 --> 00:36:45.966
I'm in the 36th minute
of this video right now,

00:36:45.966 --> 00:36:48.230
and you hear that I'm
about to lose my voice.

00:36:48.230 --> 00:36:52.535
But I do try to spend about half
the day at least making videos,

00:36:52.535 --> 00:36:55.742
and on a good day, the
whole day making videos.

00:36:55.742 --> 00:36:58.914
But it is, it's incredibly rewarding.

00:36:58.914 --> 00:37:00.665
That's why I like doing it.

00:37:00.665 --> 00:37:01.706
But it is taxing.

00:37:01.706 --> 00:37:05.523
Once you do four or five
videos, your brain is tired,

00:37:05.523 --> 00:37:08.665
and you want to go do
something, like take a walk.

00:37:08.665 --> 00:37:10.902
Anyway, hopefully, you all enjoyed that.

00:37:10.902 --> 00:37:14.655
Maybe if I have time maybe tomorrow
morning, I might do another.

00:37:14.655 --> 23:59:59.999
Maybe I'll start answering
questions below this.


Thomas Malthus and population growth

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.530 --> 00:00:03.130
The 1700s in Europe
are often referred

00:00:03.130 --> 00:00:05.220
to as the Age of Enlightenment.

00:00:05.220 --> 00:00:07.470
It was a time, we'd come
out of the Renaissance.

00:00:07.470 --> 00:00:11.850
We'd rediscovered science
and reason and in the 1700s,

00:00:11.850 --> 00:00:15.800
we saw that come about with
even more progress of society.

00:00:15.800 --> 00:00:19.410
As we exit the 1700s and
enter into the 1800s,

00:00:19.410 --> 00:00:21.880
we start having the
Industrial Revolution.

00:00:21.880 --> 00:00:25.020
And people saw the steady
march of human reason,

00:00:25.020 --> 00:00:26.610
of human progress.

00:00:26.610 --> 00:00:29.420
And because of this, a
lot of people were saying,

00:00:29.420 --> 00:00:31.760
hey, humanity will
continue to improve.

00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:34.080
It will improve
forever, to a point

00:00:34.080 --> 00:00:35.610
that poverty will go away.

00:00:35.610 --> 00:00:38.120
We will turn into this
perfect utopian civilization

00:00:38.120 --> 00:00:41.130
without wars, without
strife of any kind.

00:00:41.130 --> 00:00:43.295
And there was something
to be said about that.

00:00:43.295 --> 00:00:44.670
You had significant
improvements.

00:00:44.670 --> 00:00:46.700
In fact, you had even
more dramatic improvements

00:00:46.700 --> 00:00:48.890
once the Industrial
Revolution started.

00:00:48.890 --> 00:00:53.680
But not every one in the
late 1700s was as optimistic.

00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:57.660
And one of the more famous
not-so-optimistic people

00:00:57.660 --> 00:01:03.530
was Thomas Malthus,
right over here.

00:01:03.530 --> 00:01:05.900
And I will just
quote him directly.

00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:10.780
This is from his "Essay on
the Principle of Population."

00:01:10.780 --> 00:01:14.550
"The power of population
is so superior to the power

00:01:14.550 --> 00:01:17.440
of the earth to produce
subsistence for man,

00:01:17.440 --> 00:01:21.260
that premature death must,
in some shape or other,

00:01:21.260 --> 00:01:22.720
visit the human race."

00:01:22.720 --> 00:01:23.900
Very uplifting.

00:01:23.900 --> 00:01:27.340
"The vices of mankind are
active and able ministers

00:01:27.340 --> 00:01:29.050
of depopulation.

00:01:29.050 --> 00:01:32.450
They are the precursors in
the great army of destruction,

00:01:32.450 --> 00:01:35.550
and often finish the
dreadful work themselves.

00:01:35.550 --> 00:01:38.850
But should they fail in
this war of extermination,

00:01:38.850 --> 00:01:41.500
sickly seasons,
epidemics, pestilence,

00:01:41.500 --> 00:01:46.120
and plague advance in
terrific array, and sweep

00:01:46.120 --> 00:01:49.100
off their thousands
and tens of thousands.

00:01:49.100 --> 00:01:51.920
Should success still be
incomplete, gigantic,

00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:54.660
inevitable famine
stalks in the rear,

00:01:54.660 --> 00:01:57.690
and with one mighty blow
levels the population

00:01:57.690 --> 00:02:00.790
with the food of the world."

00:02:00.790 --> 00:02:03.820
So not so uplifting of a
little quote right over here.

00:02:03.820 --> 00:02:05.730
But this was his general sense.

00:02:05.730 --> 00:02:07.230
He lived in a time
where people were

00:02:07.230 --> 00:02:09.330
being very optimistic
that progress,

00:02:09.330 --> 00:02:12.060
the march of progress,
would go on forever

00:02:12.060 --> 00:02:14.870
until we got to some
utopian civilization.

00:02:14.870 --> 00:02:17.990
But from Thomas
Malthus' point of view,

00:02:17.990 --> 00:02:20.600
he felt that if people
could reproduce and increase

00:02:20.600 --> 00:02:22.680
the population, they
will, that there's

00:02:22.680 --> 00:02:23.890
no way of stopping them.

00:02:23.890 --> 00:02:25.630
So from his point
of view, the way

00:02:25.630 --> 00:02:28.460
he saw it-- so let
me on that axis--

00:02:28.460 --> 00:02:32.680
let's say that that
is the population,

00:02:32.680 --> 00:02:35.170
and that this axis
right over here,

00:02:35.170 --> 00:02:37.780
let's say that that is time.

00:02:37.780 --> 00:02:39.580
So by his thinking--
and everything

00:02:39.580 --> 00:02:42.610
that he'd seen in reality
up to that point would back

00:02:42.610 --> 00:02:45.930
this up-- that if people
had enough food and time,

00:02:45.930 --> 00:02:48.060
they would reproduce,
and they would reproduce

00:02:48.060 --> 00:02:50.270
in numbers that would
grow the population.

00:02:50.270 --> 00:02:53.930
So in his mind, the population
would just keep on increasing.

00:02:53.930 --> 00:02:57.800
It'll just keep on increasing,
until it can't support itself

00:02:57.800 --> 00:03:00.780
anymore, until the actual
productivity of the land

00:03:00.780 --> 00:03:04.430
can't produce enough calories
to feed all of those people.

00:03:04.430 --> 00:03:07.450
So in his mind, there would
be some natural upper bound

00:03:07.450 --> 00:03:10.170
based on the actual
amount of food

00:03:10.170 --> 00:03:11.620
that the earth could support.

00:03:11.620 --> 00:03:13.320
So let's say that
this is-- let me

00:03:13.320 --> 00:03:16.600
do that in a different
color-- so in his mind,

00:03:16.600 --> 00:03:21.220
there was some upper
bound, and once you

00:03:21.220 --> 00:03:23.180
get to that upper
bound, then all

00:03:23.180 --> 00:03:26.026
of a sudden, the vices
of mankind will show up.

00:03:26.026 --> 00:03:27.900
And if those don't start
killing people, then

00:03:27.900 --> 00:03:31.290
all of these other things
will, epidemics, pestilence,

00:03:31.290 --> 00:03:33.770
plague, and then famine.

00:03:33.770 --> 00:03:35.440
People are actually
starving to death.

00:03:35.440 --> 00:03:37.507
So in his mind, once you
got to this level, maybe

00:03:37.507 --> 00:03:39.090
you had a couple of
good crops, people

00:03:39.090 --> 00:03:42.160
are feeling good about
themselves, they overpopulate.

00:03:42.160 --> 00:03:44.120
But then, all of a sudden,
you have a bad crop,

00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:46.640
or because you have
a bad crop, people

00:03:46.640 --> 00:03:49.190
start fighting over
resources, and wars happen.

00:03:49.190 --> 00:03:52.460
Or maybe the population is so
dense that a plague develops.

00:03:52.460 --> 00:03:56.060
And then you have a massive
wave of depopulation.

00:03:56.060 --> 00:03:59.020
And so you would just
oscillate around this limit.

00:03:59.020 --> 00:04:02.090
And this limit some people
refer to as a Malthusian limit,

00:04:02.090 --> 00:04:04.020
but it's just really
the limit at which

00:04:04.020 --> 00:04:06.210
the population can
sustain itself.

00:04:06.210 --> 00:04:09.090
And from Thomas
Malthus' point of view,

00:04:09.090 --> 00:04:11.770
he did recognize that there
were technological improvements,

00:04:11.770 --> 00:04:13.990
especially in things
like agriculture.

00:04:13.990 --> 00:04:17.040
And that this line
was moving up.

00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:19.300
He had seen it in
his own lifetime,

00:04:19.300 --> 00:04:21.000
that this line had moved up.

00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:22.620
But from his point
of view, however

00:04:22.620 --> 00:04:25.450
far you moved this
line up, the population

00:04:25.450 --> 00:04:29.130
will always compensate
for it and catch up to it,

00:04:29.130 --> 00:04:33.300
and eventually get to
these Malthusian limit.

00:04:33.300 --> 00:04:36.480
And then the same
not-so-positive things

00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:39.620
that he talks about
would actually happen.

00:04:39.620 --> 00:04:41.850
And some people now
say, oh Thomas Malthus,

00:04:41.850 --> 00:04:43.000
he was so pessimistic.

00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:44.420
He was obviously wrong.

00:04:44.420 --> 00:04:45.460
Look at what's happened.

00:04:45.460 --> 00:04:47.690
We have so much food on
this planet right now.

00:04:47.690 --> 00:04:50.580
We've gone through multiple
agricultural revolutions,

00:04:50.580 --> 00:04:51.720
and they are right.

00:04:51.720 --> 00:04:54.910
In the last 200
years, since Malthus,

00:04:54.910 --> 00:04:57.420
so since the early
1800s, we really

00:04:57.420 --> 00:04:59.830
have been able to
outstrip population.

00:04:59.830 --> 00:05:03.460
So this line up here
has been moving up

00:05:03.460 --> 00:05:05.490
much faster than
even population.

00:05:05.490 --> 00:05:07.990
So right now, we actually
do have more calories

00:05:07.990 --> 00:05:09.880
per person on the
planet than we've

00:05:09.880 --> 00:05:11.730
had at any time in history.

00:05:11.730 --> 00:05:14.820
But it's not saying that
Thomas Malthus was wrong,

00:05:14.820 --> 00:05:18.820
it's just saying that maybe
he was just a little bit

00:05:18.820 --> 00:05:23.386
pessimistic in when that
limit will be reached.

00:05:23.386 --> 00:05:24.760
Now the other
dimension where you

00:05:24.760 --> 00:05:28.560
might say that he was maybe
wrong was in this principle

00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:31.150
that a population will
increase if it can increase.

00:05:31.150 --> 00:05:35.440
If there is food, and if there
is time, people will reproduce.

00:05:35.440 --> 00:05:37.100
And a good
counterpoint to that is

00:05:37.100 --> 00:05:40.690
what we've now observed in
modern, developed nations.

00:05:40.690 --> 00:05:44.150
And so this right over here
shows the population growth.

00:05:44.150 --> 00:05:46.380
I got this from the World Bank.

00:05:46.380 --> 00:05:49.810
But the population growth of
some modern, developed nations.

00:05:49.810 --> 00:05:52.660
And you can see the United
States is pretty low,

00:05:52.660 --> 00:05:53.660
but it's still positive.

00:05:53.660 --> 00:05:57.560
It's still over half a percent.

00:05:57.560 --> 00:05:59.850
But even that adds up
when you compound it.

00:05:59.850 --> 00:06:02.520
But if you look over
here, Japan and Germany--

00:06:02.520 --> 00:06:04.860
and Japan and Germany
have less immigration

00:06:04.860 --> 00:06:07.570
than the United States,
especially Japan--

00:06:07.570 --> 00:06:09.250
they are actually negative.

00:06:09.250 --> 00:06:11.850
So just this population
left to its own devices,

00:06:11.850 --> 00:06:14.210
especially if you
account for people not

00:06:14.210 --> 00:06:17.530
going across borders, just
the population itself growing,

00:06:17.530 --> 00:06:19.240
they actually have
negative growth.

00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:21.670
So there's some reason to
believe that this is evidence

00:06:21.670 --> 00:06:25.540
that Thomas Malthus was wrong,
or not completely right.

00:06:25.540 --> 00:06:28.380
He didn't put into account that
maybe once a society becomes

00:06:28.380 --> 00:06:32.130
rich enough and educated
enough, that they might not just

00:06:32.130 --> 00:06:34.680
populate the world, or have
as many kids as they want,

00:06:34.680 --> 00:06:36.400
they might try to
do other things

00:06:36.400 --> 00:06:39.050
with their time,
whatever that might be.

00:06:39.050 --> 00:06:41.960
So I just wanted to
expose you to this idea.

00:06:41.960 --> 00:06:45.070
Time will tell if Thomas
Malthus, if we can always

00:06:45.070 --> 00:06:50.130
keep this line of food
productivity growing faster

00:06:50.130 --> 00:06:51.440
than the population.

00:06:51.440 --> 00:06:54.196
And time will tell whether
our populations can become,

00:06:54.196 --> 00:06:55.820
I guess we could say,
developed enough,

00:06:55.820 --> 00:06:59.300
so that they don't inex--
I can never say that word.

00:06:59.300 --> 00:07:01.490
They don't always
just keep growing.

00:07:01.490 --> 00:07:04.300
Maybe they do become a Japan
or a Germany situation.

00:07:04.300 --> 00:07:06.610
And the world
population, especially

00:07:06.610 --> 00:07:08.560
if we have a high
rate of literacy,

00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:10.390
eventually does level off.

00:07:10.390 --> 00:07:12.870
So it never even has
a chance of hitting up

00:07:12.870 --> 00:07:14.830
against that Malthusian limit.

00:07:14.830 --> 00:07:16.880
But I thought I would
introduce you to the idea,

00:07:16.880 --> 00:07:18.421
and now you can go
to parties and you

00:07:18.421 --> 00:07:21.820
can talk about things
like Malthusian limits.

00:07:21.820 --> 00:07:24.740
And if you want to know
what country is maybe

00:07:24.740 --> 00:07:27.130
closest to the Malthusian
limit right now--

00:07:27.130 --> 00:07:29.750
and we've talked about this
before-- but a good case

00:07:29.750 --> 00:07:32.750
example is something
like Bangladesh.

00:07:32.750 --> 00:07:35.570
They are, right now, the
most population-dense country

00:07:35.570 --> 00:07:36.130
in the world.

00:07:36.130 --> 00:07:39.130
They have 900 people
per square kilometer.

00:07:39.130 --> 00:07:41.750
And just to give you a
sense of perspective,

00:07:41.750 --> 00:07:44.209
that's 30 times more dense
than the United States is.

00:07:44.209 --> 00:07:46.250
So if you took every person
in the United States,

00:07:46.250 --> 00:07:48.840
and turned them into 30
people in the United States,

00:07:48.840 --> 00:07:51.792
that would give you a sense
of how dense Bangladesh is.

00:07:51.792 --> 00:07:53.500
And it's probably due
to a certain degree

00:07:53.500 --> 00:07:55.770
that it's a very fertile land.

00:07:55.770 --> 00:07:58.070
The river delta of the
Ganges essentially makes up

00:07:58.070 --> 00:07:59.370
the entire country.

00:07:59.370 --> 00:08:02.370
But they do, they have
in the past, had famines.

00:08:02.370 --> 00:08:04.080
They've gotten a
little bit beyond that.

00:08:04.080 --> 00:08:05.910
But still, you do
have major problems

00:08:05.910 --> 00:08:08.040
with flooding and resources.

00:08:08.040 --> 00:08:12.203
So hopefully they'll be able
to stay ahead of the curve.


Random predictions for 2060

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.500 --> 00:00:02.260
In the last video
I mentioned how

00:00:02.260 --> 00:00:05.489
I've been asked to make
predictions for the year 2060.

00:00:05.489 --> 00:00:07.155
And the last one I
focused on education,

00:00:07.155 --> 00:00:09.950
and that's obviously
what I'm working on now.

00:00:09.950 --> 00:00:12.032
So I have some
opinions about that.

00:00:12.032 --> 00:00:13.490
But what I want to
do in this video

00:00:13.490 --> 00:00:17.220
is do maybe slightly more
broad and wild predictions,

00:00:17.220 --> 00:00:18.760
and my one prediction
I'll make is

00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:20.820
I'm probably
completely not going

00:00:20.820 --> 00:00:23.074
to predict the real
reality of 2060.

00:00:23.074 --> 00:00:24.490
And probably the
really big things

00:00:24.490 --> 00:00:26.090
to predict I will
completely miss.

00:00:26.090 --> 00:00:28.660
But with that out of the way
it is fun to predict things.

00:00:28.660 --> 00:00:30.280
So let's give it a shot.

00:00:30.280 --> 00:00:32.930
So the first area
that I will predict

00:00:32.930 --> 00:00:35.640
is what's going to happen
in the field of medicine.

00:00:35.640 --> 00:00:38.320
And in particular, I think
that the human lifespan

00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:40.200
is going to increase
dramatically.

00:00:40.200 --> 00:00:43.780
So I'll be conservative
and say that the lifespan,

00:00:43.780 --> 00:00:46.830
the average human
lifespan, is going to be,

00:00:46.830 --> 00:00:48.420
and especially in
the developed world,

00:00:48.420 --> 00:00:51.660
and once again, hopefully
by 2060 most of the world

00:00:51.660 --> 00:00:54.150
is developed, that the
average human lifespan is

00:00:54.150 --> 00:00:56.120
going to be over 100 years old.

00:00:56.120 --> 00:00:57.630
And I won't say
whether that's going

00:00:57.630 --> 00:00:59.070
to be a good or a bad thing.

00:00:59.070 --> 00:01:04.129
There's arguments either way
about the proper way to live,

00:01:04.129 --> 00:01:07.710
and what happens to
global populations.

00:01:07.710 --> 00:01:10.990
But if the world is for the
most part developed and educated

00:01:10.990 --> 00:01:16.570
you actually will probably have
a lower rate of reproduction.

00:01:16.570 --> 00:01:18.270
So you might actually
have some space

00:01:18.270 --> 00:01:20.530
in the world for older people.

00:01:20.530 --> 00:01:23.710
But this I think there
is a very strong chance

00:01:23.710 --> 00:01:26.340
of this happening,
because we are starting

00:01:26.340 --> 00:01:29.820
to understand the
molecular basis of aging.

00:01:29.820 --> 00:01:34.680
It's not a given thing that
because of some form of wear

00:01:34.680 --> 00:01:37.947
and tear things have to die
at after 70 years, or 80

00:01:37.947 --> 00:01:39.530
years, or 90 years,
and we're starting

00:01:39.530 --> 00:01:42.110
to understand the mechanisms,
and how to maybe improve

00:01:42.110 --> 00:01:45.620
the repair mechanisms, or how
to augment it in some way.

00:01:45.620 --> 00:01:47.560
So I definitely think
this is going to happen.

00:01:47.560 --> 00:01:50.430
I don't know whether it's going
to be a positive or negative.

00:01:50.430 --> 00:01:52.450
But it's likely to happen.

00:01:52.450 --> 00:01:54.790
The next thing-- and this
is kind of closely related,

00:01:54.790 --> 00:01:56.850
this is still
biological-- is you're

00:01:56.850 --> 00:02:00.170
going to have a close
integration between the digital

00:02:00.170 --> 00:02:01.216
and the biological.

00:02:06.950 --> 00:02:08.699
And once again, I won't
make any statement

00:02:08.699 --> 00:02:10.750
of whether this is a
good or a bad thing,

00:02:10.750 --> 00:02:13.020
but it seems like it's
just an extrapolation

00:02:13.020 --> 00:02:14.820
of the direction we're
already going in,

00:02:14.820 --> 00:02:18.390
digital and biological
integration.

00:02:18.390 --> 00:02:20.050
So already you're
getting more and more

00:02:20.050 --> 00:02:21.390
in your handheld devices.

00:02:21.390 --> 00:02:25.140
Imagine when your screen is
now no longer in your palm,

00:02:25.140 --> 00:02:26.890
but it's being projected
onto your retina

00:02:26.890 --> 00:02:28.101
from some little thing.

00:02:28.101 --> 00:02:30.100
And then eventually you
have a direct connection

00:02:30.100 --> 00:02:31.933
with your retina and
your brain can directly

00:02:31.933 --> 00:02:37.210
access areas of memory
through just direct

00:02:37.210 --> 00:02:40.594
through some biological
and digital interface.

00:02:40.594 --> 00:02:42.510
So I definitely think
this is going to happen.

00:02:42.510 --> 00:02:44.634
This is a big deal, because
this is starting to--

00:02:44.634 --> 00:02:46.050
And I think it's
already happening

00:02:46.050 --> 00:02:48.980
with a lot of what you
see around technology.

00:02:48.980 --> 00:02:52.620
It's really going
to reshape what

00:02:52.620 --> 00:02:55.100
the individual human
experience is going to be.

00:02:55.100 --> 00:02:58.520
We already see people kind of
living in virtual realities

00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:01.620
and playing these
immersive games,

00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:04.970
and spending all of their time
on social networking platforms.

00:03:04.970 --> 00:03:06.590
What happens when
they're literally

00:03:06.590 --> 00:03:09.120
plugged in all the time, when
almost their cellphone is

00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:09.750
in the brain?

00:03:09.750 --> 00:03:10.540
I don't know.

00:03:10.540 --> 00:03:13.040
I'm not going to comment whether
it's a good or a bad thing.

00:03:13.040 --> 00:03:14.600
But it does look
like a trend that's

00:03:14.600 --> 00:03:18.310
going to keep on going
through the next 50 years.

00:03:18.310 --> 00:03:20.100
Now, if we take that
even further, we're

00:03:20.100 --> 00:03:22.850
talking about a digital
and biological integration,

00:03:22.850 --> 00:03:25.280
but if you go at the extreme,
and actually it's probably

00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:27.900
both of these top two
things combined in some way,

00:03:27.900 --> 00:03:29.270
is that we are learning.

00:03:29.270 --> 00:03:30.750
And once again,
not make a comment

00:03:30.750 --> 00:03:31.810
whether it's good or bad.

00:03:31.810 --> 00:03:34.600
It's just an extrapolation
of what we're already seeing.

00:03:34.600 --> 00:03:37.040
We are seeing more
and more ability

00:03:37.040 --> 00:03:41.560
to understand our genome, to
molecularly target things,

00:03:41.560 --> 00:03:44.070
to manipulate actual biology.

00:03:44.070 --> 00:03:46.050
And so what you have is
that you can actually

00:03:46.050 --> 00:03:50.780
have manipulation of biology.

00:03:50.780 --> 00:03:54.350
And this is on
some level creepy.

00:03:54.350 --> 00:03:56.900
It could be creepy or
it could be exciting

00:03:56.900 --> 00:03:58.870
depending on how
it all plays out.

00:03:58.870 --> 00:04:05.120
But it could do things like
augment human intelligence,

00:04:05.120 --> 00:04:08.206
which would, if you think about
all the progress of society

00:04:08.206 --> 00:04:10.080
and all the things that
already accelerating,

00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:15.190
imagine how society will change
if intelligence itself is

00:04:15.190 --> 00:04:16.204
augmented.

00:04:16.204 --> 00:04:19.029
And as someone with a
limited intelligence,

00:04:19.029 --> 00:04:22.029
I can't even imagine what will
happen as soon as you do this.

00:04:22.029 --> 00:04:24.850
And obviously, the more you
augment intelligence, the more

00:04:24.850 --> 00:04:27.770
that you can learn how
to augment intelligence,

00:04:27.770 --> 00:04:31.140
and increase lifespan, and
do digital and biological

00:04:31.140 --> 00:04:32.600
integration even more.

00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:36.350
So these things I see
as some form of a trend.

00:04:36.350 --> 00:04:39.190
We'll see how it all plays
out, and hopefully it plays out

00:04:39.190 --> 00:04:43.300
in kind of the
feel-good Care Bear

00:04:43.300 --> 00:04:46.720
version versus some
type of crazy society

00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:49.630
and we all turn into
the Borg in some way.

00:04:49.630 --> 00:04:51.812
Now, the other
trend, and these are

00:04:51.812 --> 00:04:53.520
the things that just
popped into my brain

00:04:53.520 --> 00:04:56.400
today when I pressed record,
but the other trend that I think

00:04:56.400 --> 00:04:58.590
is interesting is
some of the things

00:04:58.590 --> 00:05:02.560
that we've taken for granted in
terms of how nations interact

00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:04.130
with each other,
and nation states

00:05:04.130 --> 00:05:06.150
in particular interact
with each other.

00:05:06.150 --> 00:05:09.220
And just as a kind
of an overview, so

00:05:09.220 --> 00:05:12.440
there's a notion
called a nation state.

00:05:12.440 --> 00:05:15.747
And in everyday language the
word nation and the word state

00:05:15.747 --> 00:05:17.830
almost means the same
thing, but they kind of mean

00:05:17.830 --> 00:05:19.324
different things
if you want to be

00:05:19.324 --> 00:05:20.740
a little bit more
formal about it.

00:05:20.740 --> 00:05:23.220
And that's why people use
the word nation state.

00:05:23.220 --> 00:05:24.720
That's like to a
lot of people, hey,

00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:26.919
doesn't that mean
saying like state state?

00:05:26.919 --> 00:05:28.710
The difference between
a nation and a state

00:05:28.710 --> 00:05:30.830
is these are a
group of people that

00:05:30.830 --> 00:05:32.530
feel some type of
common identity.

00:05:32.530 --> 00:05:33.770
It could be a language.

00:05:33.770 --> 00:05:34.990
It could be a culture.

00:05:34.990 --> 00:05:37.110
It could be a value system.

00:05:37.110 --> 00:05:39.650
So this is some kind
of common identity.

00:05:39.650 --> 00:05:43.182
And it often is somehow
associated with geography,

00:05:43.182 --> 00:05:45.390
but it does not have to be
associated with geography.

00:05:45.390 --> 00:05:48.050
It could even be a religion,
or it could be whatever else.

00:05:48.050 --> 00:05:49.280
That's what a nation is.

00:05:49.280 --> 00:05:54.860
A state is a formal governance
structure that makes the laws

00:05:54.860 --> 00:05:59.360
and has the institutions
to make society function.

00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:01.530
Now, a nation state
is what most of us

00:06:01.530 --> 00:06:03.030
live in today
because it both has

00:06:03.030 --> 00:06:06.770
an identity and some type
of formal institutions.

00:06:06.770 --> 00:06:10.790
So a very pure nation state
would be some place like Japan,

00:06:10.790 --> 00:06:15.190
where there's relatively
uniform, in terms of ethnicity

00:06:15.190 --> 00:06:18.600
and religion, and
in terms of culture,

00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:20.980
and you have that
same group of people

00:06:20.980 --> 00:06:23.800
are governing themselves.

00:06:23.800 --> 00:06:25.950
In a place like the
United States ethnicity,

00:06:25.950 --> 00:06:28.600
religion, that's diverse,
but what gives identity

00:06:28.600 --> 00:06:32.370
is a notion of shared
values and a notion

00:06:32.370 --> 00:06:35.170
of maybe a common
history or whatever else,

00:06:35.170 --> 00:06:37.500
or a certain kind of world view.

00:06:37.500 --> 00:06:39.970
And obviously there's a
formal state structure.

00:06:39.970 --> 00:06:42.053
Now, what I think is going
to be interesting here,

00:06:42.053 --> 00:06:43.960
and I actually have no
idea how all of this

00:06:43.960 --> 00:06:45.550
is going to play
out, but when you

00:06:45.550 --> 00:06:48.110
see things like some of the
revolutions in the Middle East

00:06:48.110 --> 00:06:51.190
due to things like people
being able to communicate

00:06:51.190 --> 00:06:53.930
irrespective of the
traditional media,

00:06:53.930 --> 00:06:57.460
I think there's going to be some
interesting questions on what

00:06:57.460 --> 00:07:02.020
happens to the nation state,
especially nation states that

00:07:02.020 --> 00:07:05.380
are able to secure their
power by kind of having

00:07:05.380 --> 00:07:07.534
a bottleneck on
access to information.

00:07:07.534 --> 00:07:08.950
And all of that
is, I think, going

00:07:08.950 --> 00:07:11.360
to change in a very
dramatic way as you

00:07:11.360 --> 00:07:13.600
have more and more
integration between people,

00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:15.200
cross-border
communications, when

00:07:15.200 --> 00:07:17.783
people realize that the people
on the other side of the border

00:07:17.783 --> 00:07:19.990
really aren't that
different than themselves.

00:07:19.990 --> 00:07:22.210
And another
interesting thing, even

00:07:22.210 --> 00:07:23.980
the notion of democracy--
and once again,

00:07:23.980 --> 00:07:25.760
I don't know how it's
going to play out--

00:07:25.760 --> 00:07:29.170
but all notions of
representational democracy

00:07:29.170 --> 00:07:32.910
that we have today are
somewhat based on geography.

00:07:32.910 --> 00:07:34.560
They're somewhat
based on geography.

00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:37.810
And that's because when
the major representational

00:07:37.810 --> 00:07:39.814
democracies came about
that was the best

00:07:39.814 --> 00:07:40.980
way to represent each other.

00:07:40.980 --> 00:07:43.320
Hey, let me pick some
representatives from our county

00:07:43.320 --> 00:07:45.945
or from our region, and they'll
go elect other representatives,

00:07:45.945 --> 00:07:47.710
and they'll go to the
national government.

00:07:47.710 --> 00:07:50.150
But now that we have this
instantaneous communication

00:07:50.150 --> 00:07:51.850
with people you
might be able to have

00:07:51.850 --> 00:07:54.472
different types of a
representational democracy,

00:07:54.472 --> 00:07:56.680
or maybe you could even have
more direct democracies.

00:07:56.680 --> 00:08:01.260
Who knows, because of things
like [INAUDIBLE] communication,

00:08:01.260 --> 00:08:02.677
and technology,
and whatever else.

00:08:02.677 --> 00:08:04.135
And then the other
way that I think

00:08:04.135 --> 00:08:06.585
nation states are, the way
they fundamentally interact

00:08:06.585 --> 00:08:09.110
is going to change is actually
in things like warfare.

00:08:09.110 --> 00:08:12.340
And once again, already
seeing this trend.

00:08:12.340 --> 00:08:15.530
In particular, I think
developed countries are not

00:08:15.530 --> 00:08:17.235
going to have humans
on the front line.

00:08:21.250 --> 00:08:22.949
And depending on
your point of view,

00:08:22.949 --> 00:08:24.490
this could be a very
good thing or it

00:08:24.490 --> 00:08:26.141
could be a kind
of a scary thing,

00:08:26.141 --> 00:08:28.140
because if you have no
humans on the front line,

00:08:28.140 --> 00:08:30.723
and you're already seeing things
like this with these predator

00:08:30.723 --> 00:08:40.070
drones and you see these
robot bomb detectors,

00:08:40.070 --> 00:08:41.080
and things like that.

00:08:41.080 --> 00:08:43.080
And it doesn't even have
to be these big things.

00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:45.240
There's already a
DARPA funded project

00:08:45.240 --> 00:08:46.990
to work on miniature
insects that

00:08:46.990 --> 00:08:48.900
could be used as some
form of reconnaissance,

00:08:48.900 --> 00:08:50.140
or you could imagine
eventually they

00:08:50.140 --> 00:08:51.485
could have these little
things on them that

00:08:51.485 --> 00:08:53.960
could knock someone out,
or who knows what they do.

00:08:53.960 --> 00:08:58.270
The exciting thing is that
all of a sudden a human

00:08:58.270 --> 00:08:59.590
won't be there to get shot.

00:08:59.590 --> 00:09:02.640
And so hopefully military
casualties would go down.

00:09:02.640 --> 00:09:05.190
The scary thing
here is if you don't

00:09:05.190 --> 00:09:08.100
have humans on the
front line nations might

00:09:08.100 --> 00:09:12.200
be willing to enter into war,
especially developed nations,

00:09:12.200 --> 00:09:13.910
they might not take
it as seriously.

00:09:13.910 --> 00:09:16.500
And so it might be something
that they do a little bit more

00:09:16.500 --> 00:09:17.890
when they're in the mood.

00:09:17.890 --> 00:09:20.680
And it would actually
create a huge disparity

00:09:20.680 --> 00:09:23.626
between developed and developing
nations when this happens.

00:09:23.626 --> 00:09:25.500
And you already see that
to a certain degree.

00:09:25.500 --> 00:09:27.080
A developed nation,
they don't have

00:09:27.080 --> 00:09:29.800
to put as many
humans in harm's way.

00:09:29.800 --> 00:09:32.890
And it's purely
driven by their wealth

00:09:32.890 --> 00:09:34.500
to have capital that
can go, you know,

00:09:34.500 --> 00:09:37.290
these robots and these drones,
and their technological

00:09:37.290 --> 00:09:40.360
innovation, while in
the developing countries

00:09:40.360 --> 00:09:43.120
they actually would have
to use human beings.

00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:46.867
So their cost would be much,
much, much, much higher.

00:09:46.867 --> 00:09:48.200
So it's an interesting question.

00:09:48.200 --> 00:09:51.420
And once again, who
knows how this plays out,

00:09:51.420 --> 00:09:54.770
whether it's a good or bad
thing in the long term.

00:09:54.770 --> 00:09:56.870
And I think a similar
thing with this

00:09:56.870 --> 00:09:58.480
is I think you're
going to see more

00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:04.390
and more nonlethal weapons,
which once again, it's

00:10:04.390 --> 00:10:07.570
very similar to this, it
sounds like it's a good thing.

00:10:07.570 --> 00:10:10.430
You know, if there's
a gun that instead

00:10:10.430 --> 00:10:14.420
of having to kill someone, it
incapacitates them in some way,

00:10:14.420 --> 00:10:17.190
or it stuns them in some way,
kind of the classic Star Trek

00:10:17.190 --> 00:10:20.680
put your phasers on stun things.

00:10:20.680 --> 00:10:23.550
I guess the scarier version
of nonlethal weapons

00:10:23.550 --> 00:10:26.580
is the threshold for using
it becomes much lower.

00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:29.780
So if a government wants
to subject its citizens

00:10:29.780 --> 00:10:31.930
or subject another
group of citizens

00:10:31.930 --> 00:10:34.513
it can literally just stun them,
or it can make them pass out,

00:10:34.513 --> 00:10:36.180
or it could control
them in some way.

00:10:36.180 --> 00:10:39.100
And so this could be
a little bit scarier.

00:10:39.100 --> 00:10:41.560
So who knows how all
of this plays out.

00:10:41.560 --> 00:10:44.870
So those are my
predictions or things

00:10:44.870 --> 00:10:46.850
to think about over
the next 50 years.

00:10:46.850 --> 00:10:49.930
These are just the things that
happened to jump into my brain

00:10:49.930 --> 00:10:52.700
today, probably based on some
of the science fiction books

00:10:52.700 --> 00:10:54.260
I've been reading,
or whatever else.

00:10:54.260 --> 00:10:56.109
But taken with a
huge grain of salt I

00:10:56.109 --> 00:10:58.650
don't know if these things are
really going to happen or not.

00:10:58.650 --> 00:11:01.480
And I don't know if they're
even a good thing or not,

00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:04.470
but they seem to be a bit
of an extrapolation of what

00:11:04.470 --> 00:11:06.530
we're already seeing.