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Though I’ve never been a big fan of Khan Academy (see The Best Posts About The Khan Academy), I do know many teachers and students have found it helpful and, for that, I applaud Sal Khan.

There are a number of things, though, that I don’t applaud him for, including his pronouncements about Artificial Intelligence (see AI Can Be Helpful To Teachers But, Despite What Sal Khan Says, It Will Not Be “the biggest Positive Transformation That Education Has Ever Seen” and Videos: “60 Minutes” Does An Infomercial For Sal Kahn & AI).

His op ed in today’s NY Times, The 1 Percent Solution to the Looming A.I. Job Crisis, though, appears to be his worst contribution to the AI public discussion.

I’m going to summarize it here in my own words and, I kid you not, I am very confident that it is an accurate description:

AI is going to result in the loss of many jobs.  Because of that, AI companies should donate one percent of their profits to a nonprofit organization to coordinate online job training to retrain those displaced workers so they can get new jobs.  This will take care of the problem.

He doesn’t say who that nonprofit should be, and who should be providing the online job training, but I think you and I can make a pretty good guess about who he has in mind.

On so many levels, this op ed continues Kahn’s commitment to magical thinking about everything and anything related to AI.

Here’s my idea: How about we regulate and tax the hell out of tech companies and, I don’t know, provide most of those funds to existing community colleges, universities, and nonprofit job training agencies with track records, along with increasing unemployment benefits to laid-off workers?