Why Poland Lost OpenAI's Geniuses? Ryszard Szubartowski Answers

Michał Karbowiak: You have raised over 100 medalists of the Olympiad in Informatics. Would Professor Ryszard Szubartowski have been able to guide a student named Ryszard Szubartowski to such a medal?

Ryszard Szubartowski: I am too old for that now…

But I am asking about the young Rysiek Szubartowski.

It's hard to say. In primary school, I was good at mathematics and Polish; I painted and wrote poems.

Did any of them survive?

I stopped a long time ago, in the sixth grade. I wrote an essay in verse. The teacher read it aloud, and the classroom fell into a stunned silence. At the end, she commented: "A poet indeed, but lacking the head that he'd need." And everyone burst into laughter. After that, they used to call me names.

That must have been very painful.

For a child, definitely. I stopped writing poetry. And I stopped putting myself out there with my painting, too.

Challenges

Did you escape into mathematics?

I liked doing things my own way, reaching solutions independently. Mathematics suited me. After primary school, however, I went to a vocational school at the Rolling Bearings Factory in Kraśnik. I trained to be a turner.

Why not a general secondary school?

Because vocational schools paid students for their work. My family circumstances were difficult: my father was ill, and my mother was trying to support me and my younger brother. Every penny counted. When I finished vocational school, my father passed away, and I enrolled in the Officers' Radiotechnical School in Jelenia Góra. I became a radar station commander there. As a soldier, I was already receiving a stipend, so I could help my mother.

After graduating from the officers' school, I was transferred to Zgierz, then to Elbląg. Eventually, I applied to the Military University of Technology in Warsaw, to the faculty of cybernetics. It was elite, the only one of its kind in Poland; they accepted a maximum of 15 people per year. You had to pass additional exams. I liked that.

The exclusivity?

That, too. I liked challenges. Besides, I was interested in cybernetics. Young people from Hungary, East Germany, and Saudi Arabia came to study at that faculty - it was an interesting crowd. I was fascinated by the various subjects we covered: graph theory, stochastic processes.

Furthermore, after cybernetics, you could only end up in the General Staff or at a military academy. Nowhere else. I was supposed to stay in Warsaw, but my wife said she would prefer to go to the seaside - to Gdynia. I found a colleague I could swap places with, and that's how I ended up at the Higher Naval School. Today, it's the Naval Academy. I finished my service at the age of 38 as a naval captain. Then I started teaching youth in school.

The military, especially during the Polish People's Republic (PRL), associates in my mind with violence.

If you are asking about hazing (the so-called "fala"), we didn't have that in the officers' school. There were some absurdities, but I managed them. Let me give you an example. If someone made their bed slightly unevenly, they would tear it apart. I went to a bookstore, bought a book titled "Use Your Brain" ("Po rozum do głowy"), and put it on the pillow. They never tore my bed apart again.

Was that an ironic message?

It was an encouragement to use one's intellect. Or another example: just before lights out, around 10 PM, the staff would assign someone to clean the toilets or the baths. I would show up at 9:50 PM and say I wanted to clean. They would say, "Not allowed, go to sleep immediately." And they would always choose someone else. I had peace of mind.

Did you know you wouldn't be chosen?

That whole system was about controlling human beings. Preferably through a system of punishments, to keep them stressed and agitated. Meaning: if he wants to sleep, make him clean. If he wants to clean - forbid him.

You certainly caught onto absurdities quickly.

Sometimes fighting them took a bit of time. I defended my master's thesis for 10 or 12 hours.

12 hours?!

I was solving a problem in probability theory and graph theory, never mind the details. The most important thing was that in my thesis, I wrote something completely contradicting one of the professors and a scientific paper he was preparing. On top of that, I provided a correct proof. What an uproar that was…

They accused me of plagiarizing it from American literature and demanded that I admit to fraud. I stated, truthfully, that I had done everything independently. My master's degree was only awarded to me after an analysis by a special committee from the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN).

Netflix

"I always had problems and they laughed at me" - that is what you said in the film "The Master" ("Mistrz") by Maciej Kawecki about your work at the school, or rather about the reactions of other teachers.

Yes.

That sounds terrible.

Why?

I feel like I'm listening to a bullied student, not an outstanding teacher who, at Secondary School No. 3 in Gdynia, educated Filip Wolski, the first Polish winner of the International Olympiad in Informatics, or Jakub Pachocki and Szymon Sidor - now leading figures at the powerful company OpenAI.

When people laugh at me, I help them. If it brings them joy, I rejoice with them.

I don't believe you.

Let them talk. After all, only time can tell who is right.

If you encountered dismissiveness before, then recently, other teachers must downright hate you.

For what reason?

Because Netflix announced they are going to make a movie about you.

That's correct. Discussions with a screenwriter are ongoing; there is a producer.

Do you finally feel validated? A Polish teacher, after years of effective work, will be shown to the world.

It seems natural to me.

That Netflix is making a movie about you? That sounds a bit egocentric.

The developmental method I teach young people should have been taken up by the Ministry of Education a long time ago. They should popularize it and do everything to ensure as many children in Poland as possible learn creatively. Yet, it was the Americans who noticed it first.

What does your method consist of?

It is a natural developmental method resulting from the process by which a human being acquires new skills. Think about it: do parents or teachers teach a child to walk? No. The child learns on their own. They stand up only when they feel that the muscles supporting their spine are properly developed and no longer hurt. It is exactly the same with learning a specific field. Each of us learns at our own pace.

What does such a creative learning process look like, using computer science as an example?

First, the student must want to learn. Development in a given field must stem from their real need. Then, they take on the challenge - meaning they solve a given task independently, at a pace that is appropriate for them. It is worth maintaining a certain work hygiene. For instance, individual analysis should not last longer than 55 minutes.

Why that long?

After this time, our concentration drops drastically. Following the analysis, the student should switch their mind off - for example, go for a walk or make some tea - thereby giving the subconscious a signal that work on this matter has concluded for the day. During sleep, the subconscious organizes and processes this information, creating new concepts. When the process of analysis, switching off the mind, and organizing information is repeated several times, we wait for an epiphany.

Like Archimedes, who is said to have shouted "Eureka!" when he understood how to measure the volume of an irregular object while in the bathtub.

Such an epiphany is natural for everyone. When it comes, it must be written down. I encourage students to come to class and explain to their peers what conclusions they have reached. Of course, only if they feel ready to do so.

During the explanation, positive emotions are generated within them, which cause the acquired knowledge to enter the superconscious. Consequently, it does not burden short-term memory - it doesn't "clog up" the brain, so to speak.

The students then become experts, and their peers prefer to learn from them rather than from the teacher.

Because it's easier to ask a classmate?

Exactly - they talk in their own way, they joke around - they don't feel that kind of distance. This is called youth tutoring.

My main role - besides substantive supervision - is to look after a good atmosphere in the group. Mutual acceptance and a sense of emotional security are the absolute foundation.

OpenAI Star

Can one work this way during standard, 45-minute computer science lessons? There wouldn't even be enough time for the analysis you mentioned.

I work with an "Olympiad group" - that is, with volunteers. In addition to school classes, interested young people come to sessions on Saturdays, and we also go to science camps.

So, not only do you work with students many times more than a standard teacher of a given subject, but you also work with rather exceptional individuals: engaged and talented ones.

I agree they are exceptional, though one can look at this exceptionality in various ways… I often get students about whom psychologists say they are unfit to function in a school environment. They wanted to expel Jakub Pachocki from his previous secondary school. They claimed he was useless. Ultimately, he transferred to our secondary school and became a medalist at the International Olympiad in Informatics. With Szymon Sidor, they first formed an exceptional duo in class, and now they do at OpenAI.

Why did they want to expel Jakub Pachocki from school?

He didn't want to solve tasks because they were too formulaic for him; he got bored quickly. Yet, he has an incredible imagination. Besides, he is a dynamic learner - he learns through movement, he dislikes sitting at a desk. And worst of all, he liked to read at night and was late for the first lesson.

So he completely failed to fit into the school mold.

Exactly. Kuba didn't want to adapt to such a mold. Another example? They said that Filip Wolski, who was the first Pole to win the International Olympiad in Informatics, wouldn't pass his high school finals (matura) in English. Because he didn't go to classes, he didn't cram vocabulary or grammar. Instead, he worked heavily on his own, preparing for the Olympiad. He told me he wanted to become the best computer scientist in Poland. We worked on American tasks; he translated them, spoke with Americans at competitions, and corresponded with them. And the result? He wrote the English matura exam better than anyone else in the school.

I am not sure if this way of working could be applied on a mass scale.

I was the homeroom teacher for one class. I took an entire group that had known each other since the middle school (gimnazjum) affiliated with our secondary school. The teachers wanted to disband them because they said the youth were rowdy and difficult. But I saw that they were talented, cool kids, worth taking in. We added other students who had been admitted to the secondary school, and a new class was formed.

And what happened? They wrote the matura exam better than anyone in the school; 21 people became laureates of subject Olympiads - not just in computer science, but in other fields as well. But my greatest satisfaction came from something else.

Meaning?

We recently had an alumni reunion. And these students of mine are computer scientists, doctors, economists, psychologists. But I was happiest when they recalled that they simply felt good in class: they were accepted, they could develop their interests. Someone was interested in chemistry, someone else in literature, another person in entrepreneurship. One of those graduates mentioned that the method I proposed could be used to teach all subjects.

And what did the subsequent year groups look like?

They stripped me of my homeroom teacher status. They decided that my way of working would only bring problems (laughs).

It seems to me - under current conditions - unscalable.

Any child can learn through the creative method in any field. In that sense, it is absolutely scalable. However, it requires systematic work and patience. A person must devote at least 20 hours a week to a given subject. Of course, the environment is also important - teachers who understand this way of learning, parents who agree to such work, or even local authorities.

With a dozen school subjects, devoting so many hours to just one field seems virtually impossible.

A student should be able to choose three subjects a year in which they want to develop, and no more than five during their entire time in secondary school.

Please tell that to the Polish Ministry of National Education.

I did. I was even an advisor to Minister Katarzyna Hall (Polish Minister of National Education from 2007 to 2011). We knew each other from the Tricity area and talked quite a bit within the ministry itself. And a lot of things were successfully introduced back then. For example, the widespread use of individual study paths, passing subjects through presentations where we checked how a student speaks or argues logically.

We provided the option to limit subjects in the final year of secondary school to only those required for the matura. Young people could dedicate more time to subjects that interested them; they competed in international Olympiads, had successes, and Polish middle schools were praised. We took a step in the right direction. But then a new government came, carried out a reform, and well, things are the way they are.

Pushing Talent Out

Meaning how?

Polish education clogs up children's brains and turns 80 to 90 percent of citizens into laborers. They learn formulas and reproduce them. They have difficulty evaluating, and they have difficulty modifying.

I think many people might feel offended by such an assessment.

Because you look at it negatively. Meanwhile, in many professions, formulas are necessary. In being a cashier, an exchange office worker, a parking attendant, a postman, a conductor, there is little room for creativity…

If so, why this emphasis on creativity?

Because the world is changing: we need more and more creators and fewer and fewer laborers. You can easily turn a creator into a laborer. The other way around is impossible.

Therefore, my goal is to develop the youth I teach and to ensure there are as many developed people in Poland as possible.

Because when a person is developed, they can adapt to various realities. If, on the other hand, they are taught a specific technology - meaning a formula imposed on them - they simply want to use it and find it hard to adapt to something new.

Why did Wolski or Pachocki enter the new world of artificial intelligence so easily? Because they are not burdened by formulas; they approach challenges creatively.

In 2007, along with Filip Wolski, you were the face of the project "Stay in Poland and Polish Your Talent." Its goal was supposed to be, among other things, halting the outflow of talented computer scientists from our country. And then even Filip left Poland. A failure.

I would even say that we pushed him out of Poland.

Pushed him out?

He was studying at the University of Warsaw and, already in his first year, was working on a serious project at the Ministry of National Education. But they made things unpleasant for him at the university. His peers laughed, asking how he could be at the ministry without a master's degree. And at the university, they looked askance, because what if a professor wanted to get something done at the ministry? Were they supposed to talk to a student? Filip came to me devastated.

We entered him into an international technology competition funded by Rolex. He realized his original project there, won, and went abroad. Later, he was part of the early team at OpenAI.

The departure of the first Polish world champion in computer science was decided by the attitude of his peers and superiors?

Of course. And how was it with Pachocki? He also studied in Poland, and his professor quickly sent him on an internship to a colleague abroad. Since the professor himself also went to another foreign university, he forgot to report to the university administration that Pachocki would be away. The result? They struck Kuba off the student list because he wasn't coming to classes.

That sounds like an unfortunate coincidence.

No, that is also an attitude. No one could be bothered to get to the bottom of the matter. What would it have hurt to call and ask where he was? It's always easier to expel someone.

Later, of course, they wanted to reverse it, but by then Pachocki already had offers from universities in the US. He wrote his PhD through a competition in two years. His classmates didn't even have topics for their bachelor's theses at the time!

Are we losing talented Poles because of a mentality?

We are losing them for many reasons. A mania for hierarchy is a deciding factor, for instance. In Poland, if a professor invents something, it's wonderful. But if someone with a master's degree does, it's crap. Because, obviously, everyone must be dumber than the professor.

In the US, they bet on a good idea, not a title. Are you bright? You have a chance in science or business. The professor is there, if anything, to advise, because they have more professional experience, and above all, life experience.

When asked how to retain Polish talent, you answer: "create conditions for them." Rather vague.

Well, but why did Robert Lewandowski leave to play football for Bayern Munich or FC Barcelona instead of staying with Znicz Pruszków, or even Lech Poznań? Because he felt he could develop there, achieve success, and fulfill his ambitions. Talents from other fields are looking for exactly the same thing.

But perhaps something is changing in Poland after all? Another student of yours - Fryderyk Wiatrowski - created the startup Viktor.com, which develops a digital AI worker that operates within Slack and Microsoft Teams, connects with company tools, and performs operational tasks for teams. The startup secured $75 million in funding. The company is developing in the US, but Wiatrowski also recently advertised openings at its Warsaw office. On LinkedIn, he wrote: "The talent stopped leaving. And started compounding."

To be honest, I don't remember Fryderyk very well from school. I know that recently my son Sebastian, with whom I cooperate, had brief contact with him. Fryderyk even mentioned that studying at the secondary school had a positive influence on him. I am very happy about both that and the fact that he is developing his enterprise in Poland. Let's hope this isn't just the one swallow that proverbially doesn't make a summer… We shall see. I always wish all graduates the best of luck. Let them do what they believe is right, and wherever they believe is right.

According to AI, I Am Not Alive

Are there students who dislike you?

Of course.

Karol Pokorski, one of the graduates of Secondary School No. 3 in Gdynia, wrote on a blog that you do not treat everyone with the same respect, that you can be blunt, and that your "hard substantive skills" in computer science are weak.

It is very good that Karol wrote that. I am very weak and know nothing about computer science at all.

And seriously?

And seriously, everyone has the right to describe their memories or experiences. Even if I remember or evaluate those situations differently, I am not going to publicly debate them. As many students, so many opinions. And I have been working for over 30 years, so there's bound to be a lot of them. Even teachers sometimes say to me in the corridor: "Do you know what the students are saying about you?".

Exactly, what are they saying?

And that, no one ever quotes (laughs). They probably say various things; that's normal.

Reportedly, you do not form special bonds with graduates, operating on the assumption that they come and go.

Everyone goes their own way; I don't want to interfere. But if they need help and ask for it, I don't refuse. Filip Wolski was looking for someone talented to develop a project in which artificial intelligence learned to play GO. I recommended Jakub Pachocki to him.

Later, they both landed at OpenAI. Today, there are many controversies surrounding both the development of artificial intelligence and the context of this company's operations. How do you evaluate them?

Any tool used wisely brings benefits, but in the case of schemers and wrongdoers - it will create evil. The more powerful the tool, the more so. It is the same with the development of AI.

Why this restraint? About social platforms, you said they "beguile people"; about learning using a smartphone, that it is a "recipe for creating morons." Is it because your students are involved in the development of AI?

Those quotes are a bit taken out of context. For can one judge that smartphones are unambiguously good or unambiguously bad? I don't know. What I do know, however, is that a young person should use a smartphone for no more than an hour and a half a day. Beyond that, they will start to become addicted.

By spending a long time browsing random content on the internet or on social media platforms, we introduce a great deal of unorganized information into the brain, and virtually without a purpose. So if I complain about an overloaded school curriculum, what can be said about what we do to ourselves? It is very harmful.

What is the recipe?

To have a passion, to become interested in something. And to use a smartphone or AI intelligently, when we want to make a call or quickly find out something because we need it at that given moment. But always verify.

Do you know that thanks to one of the AI tools, it was possible until recently to find out that I am no longer alive? I "died" at the age of 66. People on the street were surprised to run into me.

Your son, Sebastian Szubartowski, recently announced the launch of the National Talent Zone (Ogólnopolska Strefa Talentu), a project through which you will popularize your way of working with youth across Poland.

I am happy to talk about it to anyone who wants to listen. This pilot is meant to be an attempt to check whether people want this. I would like us - as teachers, or simply as adults - to help children find their passions, stimulate their curiosity, and support and respect their choices. Let's not force them to walk our paths from decades ago, to learn the same things and in the same way as their parents or grandparents. What was good for the grandfather does not have to be good for the grandson. Let children discover the world independently and utilize their creativity.

Did you raise your son this way?

My son was raised by my wife. I was at university at the time.

Interview by Michał Karbowiak