Trump’s Education Secretary Kept Calling AI ‘A1’ During Conference Discussion

Education Secretary Linda McMahon referred to AI as “A1” multiple times while speaking at an education summit in San Diego this week.

McMahon — who was nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the Department of Education — attended the ASU+GSV Summit on Tuesday. While talking about the current state of teaching, McMahon referenced the use of AI in the classroom.

As first pointed out by Victor Tangermann of Futurism, however, McMahon didn’t exactly say that.

“I mean, how can we educate at the speed of light if we don’t have the best technology around, you know, to do that?” McMahon said at the summit. “I heard — I think it was a letter or a report that I heard this morning, I wish I could remember the source — but there’s a school system that’s gonna start making sure that first graders — or even pre-K — have A1 teaching every year starting that far down in the grades.

“And That’s a wonderful thing. Kids are sponges. They just absorb everything. Wasn’t all that long ago that it was, ‘We’re gonna have internet in our schools. Woo!’ Now, OK, let’s see A1 and how can that be helpful? How can it be helpful in one-on-one instruction? How can it be helpful in absorbing more information for those fast learners? It can be more one-on-one directed. Those are the kinds of things and innovations that I wanna see continue to develop.”

Making the error even more puzzling was the fact that just seconds before those comments, McMahon referred to “AI development” and said the term correctly.