Will chatbots become your children's teachers?

Sal Khan, director of Khan Academy, gave a glowing talk last spring in which he predicted that AI chatbots would soon revolutionize education.

“We are on the verge of using AI for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen,” said Khan, whose nonprofit education group has provided online lessons for millions of students.

“And the way we're going to do it is by giving every student in the world an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor.”

Khan's vision for robot tutors exploited a Silicon Valley dream: automated teaching platforms that personalize lessons for each student.

Proponents argue that the development of such systems would help close achievement gaps in schools by delivering relevant, individualized instruction to children more quickly and efficiently than human teachers could.

In pursuit of those ideals, technology companies and philanthropists have urged schools to purchase a laptop for every child, championed video tutorial platforms, and funded learning apps that personalize students' lessons.

Some online literacy and mathematics interventions have reported positive effects. However, educational technology efforts have failed to significantly close academic achievement gaps or improve student outcomes, such as high school graduation rates.

Now the spread of generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, that can answer biology questions and create book reports as if they were made by humans, are renewing enthusiasm for automated instruction, even as critics warn that they are not yet There is evidence to support the idea that tutoring robots will positively transform education.

Online learning platforms like Khan Academy and Duolingo have introduced AI tutor chatbots based on GPT-4. That's a large language model, developed by OpenAI, that is trained on huge databases and can generate responses to user requests.

Some imagine that robotic teachers will one day be able to inspire individual students just as beloved human teachers do.

However, some researchers say schools should view the furor around this technology with suspicion.

They point out that AI chatbots make things up and could give students false information. They also said AI systems can be biased and opaque, preventing teachers and students from understanding how chatbots devise their responses.

In fact, generative AI tools could have detrimental effects on learning, said Ben Williamson, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh.

“There is a rush to proclaim the authority and usefulness of these types of chatbot interfaces and the underlying language models,” Williamson said. “But there is still no evidence that AI chatbots can produce these effects.”

Another concern: The furor around unproven AI tutors could detract from more traditional, people-focused interventions — such as universal access to preschool — that have been shown to increase student graduation rates and school attendance. university.

There are also privacy and intellectual property issues.

Some enthusiasts envision AI tutoring bots becoming study buddies that students can consult discreetly and without feeling embarrassed. They could profoundly alter the way children learn.

Jerome Pesenti, former VP of AI at Meta, just founded a tutoring service called Sizzle AI. 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 at social media company Snap, co-founded a writing startup called Ethiqly. The app's AI chatbot can help students organize and structure essays, as well as offer feedback on their writing.

Last year, Khan Academy introduced an AI chatbot called Khanmigo specifically for school use. It is designed to help students think through problems, not do their schoolwork for them.

By: NATASHA SINGER