Chapter 1: Upending Convention and the Rise of Just-in-Time Learning
📝 本节摘要：
本节中，谷歌的Ben Gomes与《魔鬼经济学》作者Steve Levitt探讨了教育改革的必要性。Levitt指出目前的教育体系在数百年的修修补补中迷失了目标——即培养适应性强、充满好奇心的人。双方深入讨论了从传统的“万一有用式学习”（Just-in-case learning）向适应现代科技变化的“即时式学习”（Just-in-time learning）转变的必要性。Levitt还坦率地批评了现行的评分制度，认为它迫使教师教授不重要且复杂的知识，仅仅为了区分学生等级。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: How do I get an AI tutor in every kid's ear? How is there not a stampede to get kids equipped with those tools? (dramatic classical music) So Steven, I've been a huge fan of your books for a long time.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 我该如何把AI导师送到每个孩子的耳边？为什么没有出现一股让孩子们装备这些工具的热潮？（戏剧性的古典音乐）Steven，我是你书的忠实粉丝很久了。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: Thank you.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 谢谢。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: "Freakonomics" and "SuperFreakonomics," and they showed the power of data to upend conventional wisdom. And I, you know, now you're interested in education. And do you think there's a lot of need to upend conventional wisdom in education?
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 《魔鬼经济学》和《超爆魔鬼经济学》，它们展示了数据颠覆传统智慧的力量。我知道你现在对教育感兴趣。你认为在教育领域非常需要颠覆传统智慧吗？
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: (laughing) Oh my god. I mean, I think we've layered, for hundreds of years, we've layered little changes on top of what already existed. And I feel like we've just so lost sight of the objective, which is to create a new generation of people who are well-adjusted and curious and excited about the world. It's an incredibly hard problem, and I'm not sure I have any of the answers. But I think we want something different from our education system.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: （大笑）天啊。我的意思是，我认为数百年来，我们只是在现有的基础上层层叠加微小的改变。我觉得我们已经完全迷失了目标，即培养出适应性强、充满好奇心且对世界感到兴奋的新一代人。这是一个极其困难的问题，我不确定我是否有答案。但我认为我们希望从教育系统中得到一些不同的东西。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: So I think in the past, people studied something that was gonna hold them for all their lives. And now, technology is changing much more rapidly, so there's a need to adapt to technology. And do you think that that changes also, it seems that that changes sort of fundamentally how education needs to work to create those skills to adapt.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 我认为在过去，人们学习的东西能支撑他们的一生。而现在，技术变化得更快，所以需要适应技术。你是否认为这也改变了——这似乎从根本上改变了教育需要如何运作，以创造那些适应性的技能。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: Yeah, I'm stealing it from one of my podcast guests. I can't remember which one it was, but he talked about just-in-case learning, which is what we do now. Like I'm gonna teach you about calculus or about geometry or chemistry or Shakespeare, whatever it is, just in case, some moment in your life 20 years from now, you're gonna say, "Oh my god. I need to know a right triangle. I need to make some calculation about it." Versus just-in-time learning, which is something which actually makes sense.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 是的，我要借用我播客一位嘉宾的观点。我不记得是哪一位了，但他谈到了“万一有用式学习”（just-in-case learning），这就是我们现在所做的。比如我要教你微积分、几何、化学或莎士比亚，不管是什么，只是为了以防万一，在你20年后的生命中某个时刻，你会说：“天啊，我需要知道直角三角形。我需要对此进行计算。”与之相对的是“即时式学习”（just-in-time learning），这才是有意义的。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: So you and I have both, at various points in our life, faced problems where we didn't know what the answers were, and we didn't have the right tools. And what I do and I assume you do is say, "Well, I gotta go learn those tools." And I was equipped to be able to learn those tools. So I think you're right. In a world in which you do not know what you'll be doing five years from now or 20 years from now, building, and a world in which so much knowledge is now at our fingertips, cramming your head full of facts and formulas is not the answer to managing the future. It's not even, you know?
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 你和我在生活中的不同阶段都曾面临过不知道答案的问题，也没有合适的工具。我做的，我也假设你会做的是说：“好吧，我得去学习那些工具。”而且我具备学习这些工具的能力。所以我认为你是对的。在一个你不知道自己5年或20年后会做什么的世界里，在一个如此多的知识触手可及的世界里，把满脑子塞满事实和公式并不是应对未来的答案。甚至根本不是，你知道吗？
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Yeah, yeah.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 是的，是的。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: It's self-evident that it's not. But it's hard for the system to catch up, in part, because the system is built on evaluation, right, of giving grades. And as an educator teaching at the University of Chicago, look, I'm the worst offender in the world. I need to somehow give some kids A's and some kids B's. And the easiest way to do that is to teach them things that don't matter in ways that are somewhat hard and overcomplicated so that I have a way to separate them out. (Ben laughing) And it's terrible and I'm embarrassed about it. But it's what I do in my everyday life.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 这显然不是答案。但系统很难跟上，部分原因是这个系统建立在评估之上，对吧，也就是打分。作为在芝加哥大学任教的教育者，听着，我是世界上最糟糕的冒犯者。我需要设法给一些孩子A，给另一些孩子B。而最简单的方法就是用某种困难且过度复杂的方式教他们一些无关紧要的东西，这样我就有办法把他们区分开来。（Ben大笑）这很糟糕，我对此感到尴尬。但这正是我日常生活中所做的事情。
Chapter 2: AI Empowerment and the New Model of Mastery Learning
📝 本节摘要：
Ben探讨了AI在传递复杂概念中的潜力，并提到了Google正在实验的LearnLM项目，旨在解决AI“阿谀奉承”（sycophantic）的问题，使其更像真正的人类导师。Steve分享了他正在创办的K-12学校的核心理念：利用技术实现“掌控式学习”（Mastery Learning）。他认为，通过技术手段，学生可以用现有四分之一的时间完成标准化考试内容的学习，从而释放出大量时间。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: I think students would be lucky to have you as a professor because you're a very engaging storyteller, but also, the ability to convey complex concepts. And one of the things I've been thinking about in the context of AI, right, is how do you bring that? How do you help students get to those fundamental ideas in any of these disciplines through a process of interacting with AI or AI providing other tools that do that?
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 我认为学生能有你当教授是很幸运的，因为你是一个非常迷人的讲故事的人，同时也具备传达复杂概念的能力。而在AI的背景下，我一直在思考的一件事是，你如何引入这一点？你如何通过与AI互动或AI提供的其他工具，帮助学生领悟任何学科中的那些基本思想？
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: And you know, we've got this experiment called LearnLM, which is trying to solve the basic problems of tutoring. Because you know, there's a lot of evidence that, you know, tutoring can actually help improve outcomes dramatically, right?
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 你知道，我们有一个叫LearnLM的实验，试图解决辅导的基本问题。因为有很多证据表明，辅导实际上可以显著提高学习成果，对吧？
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: Yeah.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 是的。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: But tutoring with a human has certain properties. The AIs can be very sycophantic. They can tell you you're right when you're not right and things of that sort. And so we have been tuning this LLM to actually be better about those characteristics that we know are true of tutors.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 但人工辅导具有某些特性。AI可能会非常阿谀奉承。它们会在你不对的时候告诉你你是对的，诸如此类。所以我们一直在调整这个大语言模型（LLM），使其在那些我们所知的真正导师的特征上表现得更好。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: So you're starting this school. So you're thinking about this also from the perspective of kids at K through 12.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 你正在创办这所学校。所以你也是从K-12（从幼儿园到高三）孩子的角度来考虑这个问题的。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: Yeah.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 是的。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: How are you thinking about that? Are you thinking about toolkits of that sort for the students to learn? Are you thinking about a conventional curriculum.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 你是怎么考虑的？你在考虑让学生学习那类工具包吗？还是在考虑传统的课程体系？
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: The crux of our whole school is that, by using technology, bespoke, you know, teaching to kids at the level they are and being able to react to what they know and don't know, and so letting them skip the stuff they already know, letting them learn twice, essentially mastery learning.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 我们整所学校的关键在于，通过使用技术，定制化的，你知道，在孩子们现有的水平上进行教学，并能够对他们知道和不知道的内容做出反应，从而让他们跳过已经掌握的内容，或者让他们学两遍，本质上这就是“掌控式学习”（mastery learning）。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Yeah, yeah.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 是的，是的。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: Enabled by technology.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 由技术赋能。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Yeah.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 是的。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: That is such a better way of teaching kids.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 这是一种好得多的教孩子的方式。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Yeah.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 是的。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: That our whole model is based on the idea that the stuff that they're gonna test on the SAT or the ACT, like we can teach that to kids in about 1/4 of the time that it currently takes, just because there is a better way of teaching that.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 我们的整个模式基于这样一个理念：那些SAT或ACT考试要考的内容，我们可以用目前所需时间的四分之一左右教给孩子们，仅仅因为有一种更好的教学方法。
Chapter 3: The Efficiency Challenge and Reshaping the Teacher's Role
📝 本节摘要：
效率提升带来了新的难题：如何有效利用释放出的每天6小时？Steve对能否提供令人兴奋的课程感到紧张。他同时也质疑，既然AI导师如此有效，为何没有出现普及的“热潮”。Ben回应强调了人类在激励（motivating）方面的不可替代性。Steve解释了他的学校致力于将教师转变为“啦啦队长和向导”，而非单纯的讲师。Ben回忆了一位耶稣会历史老师的例子，说明优秀的教师如何通过激发讨论将枯燥的史实转化为对人类互动的深度思考。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: But what I think is much harder thing about, well, now that I've freed up that time in the day, so I've got, say, six hours a day that I'm not warehousing kids and using awful old 1800s technologies, trying to get them to learn things about triangles, what am I gonna do with them? That's actually the part that- I'm really nervous about. 'Cause am I actually gonna be able to deliver them a curriculum that is exciting and engaging?
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 但我认为更难的一点是，既然我在一天中腾出了那些时间，比如我一天有6个小时，不再是用糟糕的19世纪的技术“囤积”孩子，试图让他们学习关于三角形的东西，那我该拿这些时间做什么？这实际上是我非常紧张的部分。因为我真的能为他们提供一套既令人兴奋又引人入胜的课程吗？
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Are there particular things that you see there that have been very effective?
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 你有没有看到什么特别有效的方法？
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: I mean, already I think, AI tutors are, you know, as good as a run-of-the-mill human tutor. Probably, you know, it won't be long. But to me, if I ran, you know, the California Department of Education, my thought would be, "How do I get an AI tutor in every kid's ear?" Because if you told me suddenly I had a grant for, you know, $17 billion that would put, you know, a tutor, a full-time tutor for every kid, I would take it in a second. How is there not a stampede to get kids equipped with those tools? But I don't think there is.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 我的意思是，我认为现在的AI导师已经和普通的人类导师一样好了。可能用不了多久（会更好）。但对我来说，如果我管理加州教育部，我的想法会是：“我该如何把AI导师送到每个孩子的耳边？”因为如果你告诉我，我突然得到一笔170亿美元的拨款，可以为每个孩子配备一名全职导师，我会毫不犹豫地接受。为什么没有出现一股让孩子们装备这些工具的热潮？但我认为并没有。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: AI can act as a tutor, but there is, I also believe there is the role of the human in motivating. And how people interact with the technology, the teacher, the student, and so on, is being evolved. I feel like we're currently in an era of evolution. A new technology has come, and then that technology itself is evolving rapidly. And there are long-established institutions that are trying to figure out how to use that technology best. And we are trying to work with teachers and so on, right?
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: AI可以充当导师，但我相信人类在激励方面也有其作用。人们如何与技术、教师、学生等互动，正在演变。我觉得我们目前正处于一个进化时代。一项新技术出现了，然后这项技术本身也在迅速发展。而那些历史悠久的机构正在试图弄清楚如何最好地利用这项技术。我们也在努力与教师等合作，对吧？
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: Yeah.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 是的。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: In school systems to help them and for them to inform us to what's working and what's not. Humans are still pretty fundamental. Like humans learn because of humans. How you think of the humans in the loop- In your school?
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 在学校系统中帮助他们，并让他们告诉我们什么有效，什么无效。人类仍然是非常基础的。比如人类因为人类而学习。你如何看待这其中的人类环节——在你的学校里？
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: So in our school, what we're trying to do is take teachers and turn them into cheerleaders and guides, people who are helping the kids understand who they are and who they become, and trying to get rid of obstacles that are keeping kids from doing that, which is, you know, which I think many people go into teaching imagining- That's what they do.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 在我们的学校，我们试图做的是把教师变成啦啦队长和向导，变成帮助孩子们了解他们是谁以及他们将成为谁的人，并试图消除阻碍孩子们实现这一目标的障碍，我认为这也是许多人进入教育行业时想象的——这就是他们要做的事。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: That's what they do.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 这就是他们要做的事。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: But then the reality takes it away. (dramatic classical music)
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 但现实却把这一切夺走了。（戏剧性的古典音乐）
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: I remember I had a history teacher in school, very inspirational, you know, was a Jesuit priest. And he would set up history as like, "Here's a situation. Here are the parties. What do you think is gonna happen?"
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 我记得我在学校时有一位历史老师，非常鼓舞人心，他是一位耶稣会神父。他会把历史设定成这样：“这是一个局势。这几方是当事人。你认为会发生什么？”
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: Yeah.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 是的。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Now, there's no way for us to actually know that, but the discussion kept us engaged in a way that I'd never been engaged with history before. 'Cause otherwise it was years and dimensions of temples and numbers and dates and stuff like that, and like, one king after another, right? And so this suddenly turned into something about like human beings and how they interact and so on, right? So I think it leaves you that space, but you also needed something of like what actually happened in history.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 其实我们要真知道结果是不可能的，但这种讨论让我们以一种我从未有过的方式投入到历史中。因为否则历史就是年份、寺庙的尺寸、数字和日期之类的东西，就像一个国王接着另一个国王，对吧？但这突然变成关于人类以及他们如何互动之类的事情了，对吧？所以我认为这给你留下了空间，但你也需要知道历史上实际发生了什么。
Chapter 4: From "Have To" to "Want To" – A Vision for the Future
📝 本节摘要：
两位对话者对比了学校教育（必须做）与YouTube/Google等平台（想要做）的学习模式差异。Ben指出，创作者的成功源于人们“想要”学习，而AI有助于提升学校教育中“想要学”的比例，并让“不得不学”的部分更高效。Steve表达了对目前在传统课堂中感到过时的无奈，但对新学校项目充满希望，期待在未来几年能回顾这段创造历史的经历。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: Yes. And so I do think, yeah, we would benefit a lot from a system in which teachers felt free to be more themselves and didn't feel this pressure, where like, "I've got to bomb through these four topics today because the state standards have 472 topics. And so I have to click off these 472 boxes. And if I don't, someone's gonna be mad at me." Like I think, I totally understand why people respond to those incentives. I think those are the wrong incentives. Honestly, I think what we're asking teachers to do at our school is to connect with kids. I mean, part of what that history professor you're talking about did, who changed the way you thought about history, was gave you the freedom to actually start to be creative and to think-
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 是的。所以我确实认为，如果在一个系统中，教师感到可以自由地做自己，而不必感到这种压力，比如“我今天必须轰炸式地讲完这四个主题，因为州标准有472个主题。所以我必须勾选这472个框。如果我不这么做，有人会生我的气。”我认为，我完全理解人们为什么会对这些激励做出反应。但我认为这些是错误的激励。老实说，我认为我们在学校要求教师做的是与孩子们建立联系。我是说，你提到的那位改变了你对历史看法的历史教授，他所做的一部分工作，就是给了你开始发挥创造力和思考的自由——
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Yeah.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 是的。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: In a history context instead of feeling like your only job is to memorize and regurgitate.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 在历史的语境下，而不是让你觉得你唯一的工作就是记忆和机械复述。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Yeah, and I think about like, you know, one of the reasons I'm working on learning at Google is things like YouTube and Search and Gemini, even like Google Arts & Culture, people come to those tools because they want to, not because they have to, right? So the creators on YouTube, I find like really inspire, and there's so much I've learned from them. And you know, they don't succeed unless people want to come to their education. And they learn in a somewhat different way in that want to-
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 是的，我想，我在Google致力于学习领域的原因之一，就是像YouTube、搜索、Gemini，甚至Google艺术与文化这样的工具，人们使用这些工具是因为他们想要用，而不是因为他们必须用，对吧？我觉得YouTube上的创作者真的很鼓舞人心，我从他们那里学到了很多。你知道，除非人们想要来接受他们的教育，否则他们不会成功。他们在那种“想要学”的过程中，学习方式多少有些不同——
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: Yeah.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 是的。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Rather than have to. But there are these, feels like there are these two components of education, and hopefully, the want to can become larger in this process using some of these tools of AI. And the have to can become more efficient.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 而不是“不得不学”。但这似乎是教育的两个组成部分，希望通过使用这些AI工具，在这个过程中，“想要学”的比重能变大。而“不得不学”的部分能变得更高效。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: Yeah.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 是的。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: And effective, right? So those, it seems like that's part of what you're trying to achieve in this school. (dramatic classical music)
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 并且更有效，对吧？这似乎正是你试图在这所学校实现的一部分目标。（戏剧性的古典音乐）
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: In my own classroom, I'm not excited at all. You know, I feel like I'm part of the past in my own classroom. But here, trying to create this, it really feels like being part of the future. So it's, I hope we have a conversation-
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 在我自己的课堂上，我一点也不兴奋。你知道，我觉得在我自己的课堂上我是过去的一部分。但在这里，试图创造这一切，真的感觉像是未来的一部分。所以我希望我们能有一场对话——
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Yeah.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 是的。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: Two, five, 10 years from now.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 在两年、五年或十年之后。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Yes.
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 是的。
[原文] [Steve Levitt]: In which we can both say that we, you know, that we spent our time well and it was fun, and we created amazing things for the world.
[译文] [Steve Levitt]: 到那时我们都能说，你知道，我们没有虚度光阴，而且过程很有趣，我们为世界创造了了不起的东西。
[原文] [Ben Gomes]: Yeah, that'll be wonderful. (dramatic classical music)
[译文] [Ben Gomes]: 是的，那将是太棒了。（戏剧性的古典音乐）