Mark Cuban talks education with Gov. Jared Polis, says AI can transform teaching

Yahoo

26-07-2025

COLORADO SPRINGS – All in on AI.
That was the message billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban delivered July 25 about how to improve America's education system.
Speaking to the National Governors Association in an onstage discussion with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis at The Broadmoor about Polis' 'Let's Get Ready! Educating All Students for Success' initiative, Cuban urged the governors to think outside the box.
Instead of identifying ways to incorporate artificial intelligence into our current education model, which he argues has changed little since the 1880s, he believes educators should unlock the full potential of AI.
'Why wouldn't you, A) first make the determination for what you want your kids to learn, whether it's your own kids you're home-schooling or kids at school,' Cuban said. 'Is it just reading, writing, 'rithmetic so that they could do well on tests? Or is it logical thinking. Is it critical thinking, in addition to reading, writing and 'rithmetic?
'And wouldn't it be better to customize using AI to set up quizzes and training sessions that not only did the training but also took the responses and analyzed them against all the other responses to look for shortcomings or acceleration so that it knows that this student is going to need help.'
More: State program eases career change for former CSU employee now teaching special education
Polis, who is completing his term as president of the National Governors Association, opened the door to the discussion of AI with his first question.
'Let's start with AI, in two ways. One, kind of globally how is this changing the world we live in for better or worse, macro level? And then drilling down, what does it mean in our schools and what kids should learn?'
Cuban took it from there.
He said he fed questions about how to improve our education system into multiple AI systems himself before coming to the July 25 session, acknowledging that each — ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity, OpenAI, etc. — have their individual strengths and weaknesses. His comments, Cuban said, were developed using a consensus of responses from multiple AI platforms.
AI can customize problems, lessons and quizzes for individual students in a way that no teacher ever could, Cuban said, personalizing the delivery and pace based on their responses. That way, both the best and worst students in all schools are given an equal opportunity to increase their knowledge in whatever areas the educators setting up the program deem important.
With AI's knowledge base, every student with an internet-connected device has access to the work of doctors, mentors, nearly every book in every library, research published by researchers and professors and so on, Cuban said.
'There's nothing that they don't have access to,' Cuban said. 'Every governor in this room, your assistants are using ChatGPT and now your 4-year-old gets access to the same information? When did that ever happen in the history of the world before?
'That is the ultimate democratization, egalitarian use of knowledge. It's incredible.'
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon participated in an earlier question-and-answer session led by Polis and also advocated for the expanded use of AI in classrooms. She spoke highly of the individualized learning she witnessed in a mathematics classroom at a school in Austin, Texas, where each student was working on a problem on their own individual screens while the teacher monitored all 25. When the teacher saw a student struggling, McMahon said, she went to their desk to help.
Cuban said the eight or nine biggest AI companies are spending tens of billions of dollars annually, maybe more than $100 billion per year, in hopes of becoming the dominant force globally in artificial intelligence.
That competition, Cuban said, has them all competing for information to be able to train the models. As they try to 'silo' that information so that it's only available to their models and not those of their competitors, Cuban said governors should have no trouble getting them on board to provide free or low-cost access to their systems in exchange for the AI model's access to the questions and responses of tens of thousands or even millions of their students. Not to mention getting students familiar with a system they might keep on using well beyond school.
States and educators can and should build some guardrails into whatever systems they choose to use, he said, to ensure students don't stray too far off topic and complete their assignments. And, he urged the governors to make sure any AI providers maintain text files of all queries and responses of users under the age of 18 that can be easily accessed by parents or guardians.
Recalling that he often sat his own children, now ages 15, 18 and 21, in front of an iPad to watch "Scooby-Doo" to entertain them when they were young, Cuban said he'd use AI now, plugging in some questions that could get them started on inquiries that would peak their curiosity and provide him with more insight into their interests and learning style at a younger age. Parents of older children who worry their kids don't like to read, he said, should simply get them started on AI exploration of whatever it was they hoped their children would learn from those books. Let their natural curiosity lead the way, Cuban said.
At home and in the classroom.
'We have this unique tool that's never existed before,' Cuban said. 'We have to use that for a way to teach that's never been done before.'
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at [e-mail], x.com/KellyLyell, threads.net/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Mark Cuban talks with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis about AI and education
Solve the daily Crossword