Sal Khan, CEO of Khan Academy, gave a rousing TED talk last spring in which he predicted that AI-powered chatbots would soon revolutionize education.
“We are on the verge of using artificial intelligence for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen,” said Khan, whose nonprofit education group has provided online lessons to millions of students. “And the way we’re going to do that is to give every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but extraordinary personal tutor.”
The tutoring bot videos are about Mr. Khan accumulated millions of views. Soon, prominent tech executives, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, began issuing similar predictions about education.
Khan’s vision of tutoring bots is inspired by a decades-old Silicon Valley dream: automated teaching platforms that instantly personalize lessons for each student. Supporters argue that developing such systems would help close achievement gaps by providing children with relevant, personalized education more quickly and efficiently than human teachers ever could.
In pursuit of such ideals, tech companies and philanthropists over the years have urged schools to buy a laptop for every child, supported video tutorial platforms and funded learning apps that personalize students’ lessons. Some online mathematics AND literacy interventions Have reported positive effects. But many technology efforts for education Have has not been shown to significantly close academic achievement gaps or improve student outcomes, such as high school graduation rates.
Now the spread of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, which can answer biology questions and produce human-sounding book reports, is renewing enthusiasm for automated instruction, even as critics warn they’re not there yet evidence to support the idea that tutoring robots can work. transform education for the better.
Online learning platforms like Khan Academy and Duolingo introduced GPT-4 based AI chatbot tutors. This is a large language model, developed by OpenAI, that is trained on massive text databases and can generate responses in response to user queries.
And some technology executives predict that, in time, robot teachers will be able to respond to and inspire individual students just like beloved human teachers.
“Imagine being able to offer this kind of teacher to every student 24/7, whenever they want, for free,” Greg Brockmannthe president of OpenAI said last summer in an episode of “Possible” podcast.. (The podcast is co-hosted by Reid Hoffman, an early investor in OpenAI.) “It’s still a little bit of science fiction,” added Brockman, “but it’s a lot less science fiction than it used to be.”
The White House seems sold out. In a recent executive order on artificial intelligence, President Biden instructed the government to “shape the potential of artificial intelligence to transform education creating resources to support educators in implementing AI-enabled educational tools, such as personalized tutoring in schools,” according to a White House fact sheet.
Nonetheless, some education researchers say schools should be wary of the hype around AI-assisted education.
For one thing, they point out, AI-based chatbots freely make things up and could provide students with false information. Making AI tools a mainstay of education could elevate unreliable sources to class authorities. Critics also argue that AI systems can be biased and often opaque, preventing teachers and students from understanding exactly how chatbots process their responses.
Indeed, generative AI tools may prove to have harmful or “degenerative” effects on student learning Ben Williamsonresearcher at the University of Edinburgh’s Digital Education Research Centre.
“There is a rush to proclaim the authority and usefulness of these types of chatbot interfaces and the underlying language models that power them,” Dr. Williamson said. “But the evidence that AI-based chatbots can deliver these effects does not yet exist.”
Another concern: Enthusiasm for unproven AI chatbot tutors could dwarf more traditional, human-centered interventions. like universal access to preschool – this has been proven increase graduation rates and college attendance.
There are also privacy and intellectual property issues. Many large language models are trained on large databases of texts that have been retrieved from the Internet, without compensating the creators. This could pose a problem for unionized teachers concerned about fair job pay. (The New York Times recently sued OpenAI and Microsoft over this issue.)
There are also concerns that some AI companies may use materials posted by educators or comments made by students for their own business purposes, such as improving their chatbots.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which has more than 1.7 million members, said her union is working with Congress on regulation to ensure that artificial intelligence tools are fair and safe.
“Teachers use educational technology every day and want to have more say in how technology is implemented in classrooms,” Ms. Weingarten said. “The goal here is to advance the potential of AI and protect against serious risks.”
This is hardly the first time education reformers have advocated for automated teaching tools. In the 1960s, proponents predicted that mechanical and electronic devices called “teaching machines” – programmed to ask students questions about topics like spelling or math – would revolutionize education.
Popular Mechanics captured the zeitgeist in an October 1961 article was headlined: “Will Robots Teach Your Children?” It described “a wave of automated experimental teaching” sweeping schools across the United States in which students worked independently, entering answers into devices at their own pace.
The article also warned that the new machines raised some “profound” questions for educators and children. Would the teacher, the article wondered, become “simply a glorified babysitter”? And: “What effect does rote teaching have on students’ critical thinking?”
Cumbersome and didactic, teaching machines have proven to be a short-term classroom phenomenon, both overrated and over-feared. The launch of new AI-powered teaching robots has followed a similar narrative of potential education transformation and harm.
Unlike the old teaching machines of the 20th century, however, AI-based chatbots appear improvised. They generate instant responses to individual students in conversational language. This means they can be fun, compelling and engaging.
Some enthusiasts envision AI tutoring robots becoming study buddies that students could safely consult without embarrassment. If schools widely adopted such tools, they could profoundly alter how children learn.
This has inspired some former Big Tech executives to turn to education. Jerome Pesenti, former VP of AI at Meta, recently founded a tutoring service called The sizzling artificial intelligence The app’s AI chatbot uses a multiple-choice format to help students solve math and science questions.
And Jared Grusd, former chief strategy officer of social media company Snap, co-founded a writing start-up called Ethically. The app’s AI chatbot can help students organize and structure essays, as well as provide them with feedback on their writing.
Mr. Khan is one of the most visible advocates of tutoring robots. Last year, Khan Academy introduced an AI chatbot called Khanmigo specifically for classroom use. It is designed to help students think through problems in math and other subjects, not do their homework for them.
The system also stores conversations students have with Khanmigo so teachers can review them. And the site clearly warns users: “Khanmigo sometimes makes mistakes.” Schools inside Indiana, New Jersey and other states are now testing the chatbot tutor.
Khan’s vision for tutoring robots can be traced back in part to popular science fiction books such as “The era of diamonds”, a cyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. In that novel, a fictional tablet-like device is able to teach a young orphan exactly what he needs to know at exactly the right moment, in part because it can instantly analyze his voice, facial expression, and surrounding environment.
Mr. Khan predicted that within five years or so, robot tutors like Khanmigo would be able to do something similar, with privacy and security protections in place.
“The AI will be able to look at the student’s facial expression and say, ‘Hey, I think you’re a little distracted right now. Let’s focus on this,'” Mr. Khan said.