Josh Tyrangiel book excerpt: How OpenAI and Khan Academy Made a Chatbot

The secret to integrity is saying no a lot, and that’s what Sal Khan did in early 2021, the first time that the president and co-founder of OpenAI, Greg Brockman, invited him to try ChatGPT. Perhaps he might find a way to use the technology at Khan Academy, his online education empire? Back then, OpenAI was an obscure research lab, and ChatGPT-3 was an experiment that had more in common with a Roomba than a Tesla. The model would show glimmers of intelligence, then roll into a corner and head-butt itself. It did not take long for Mr. Khan to politely pass on the idea of a collaboration.

OpenAI had reached out because it’s hard to find anyone in public life as universally admired — by the right, the left, education leaders, reformers, teachers, parents, students — as Mr. Khan. Since he founded Khan Academy as a nonprofit in 2008, it has expanded its library of thousands of video lessons and interactive exercises into dozens of subjects. Its mission is “to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere,” and some 190 million people use the service around the world. In the United States, nearly 800 school districts use its software for instruction, training and aligning curricula with state requirements. In all, Khan Academy’s success is among the best evidence that the internet is worth all the trouble it creates, and companies often want a piece of Mr. Khan’s credibility.

The second time Mr. Brockman reached out to Mr. Khan, he added his co-founder Sam Altman, and the email was more cryptic. It was the summer of 2022, several months before ChatGPT-3.5 would debut and introduce much of the world to generative artificial intelligence. Mr. Khan was still skeptical, but he and his chief learning officer, Kristen DiCerbo, signed an NDA and got on a Zoom call. They became two of the only people in the world to know about the existence of GPT-4 — OpenAI’s next next generation — with capabilities well beyond the model that hadn’t even blown people’s minds yet.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/16/business/tyrangiel-ai-book-openai-khan-academy-khanmigo.html