An exchange between an enterprising recent Harvard grad and an ed-tech CEO at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech in Deer Valley, Utah, on Tuesday sparked a debate over education in today’s new A.I. world.
On one side, panelist Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig gave an earnest defense of A.I. as a democratizing tool that offers countless students who can’t afford a private tutor a semblance of one. And on the other was audience member Nadya Okamoto, a former Harvard student and founder of startup August Period, a startup that sells sustainable tampons and pads. Drawing on her own experience, she called B.S., saying that ChatGPT and Chegg were only good for helping students cut corners by copying the right answers to their homework.
