In the past couple of years it has been common to hear about the numerous professions that are at risk with the advance of artificial intelligence (AI). Teachers and professors have normally not been within those. However, this could change in the near future. Increasingly available amounts of data collected from online courses such as clickstreams, eye-tracking detection as well as emotions, could turn this into a reality (Haw, 2019). According to experts, AI machines will teach exclusively in online classrooms and will successively improve its teaching skills by examining student’s study behavior (Haw, 2019). Moreover, AI-led professors will design exclusive learning plans for each student in order to maximize their potential (Haw, 2019). This is far from possible today. Nevertheless, AI is already being used to support current professors. In fact, a professor for Knowledge Based Artificial Intelligence at the Georgia Institute of Technology has built a teaching assistant bot named Jill to help him answer his students’ questions. After a few months, Jill was able to respond questions with 97% certainty and did not need any supervision from other teaching assistants (Maderer, 2016). You can learn more about Jill by watching this video.
AI technology is a great support for teachers and professors by providing feedback, boosting learning outcomes and by automating repetitive tasks (Jansen, 2019). However, should it just remain a tool for support? Will it really be beneficial for students, schools and universities that AI machines become the only instructors in classrooms?
On the one hand, I as a student, would not like to have an AI tutor exclusively teaching my lectures. I find the human element very important. Teaching is a creative, dynamic and collaborative process that requires empathy with the student audience. While the virtual tutor would undoubtedly be successful at presenting the content, the lecturer’s “pastoral role” would be lost (Haw, 2019). On the other hand, AI-led lecturers/teachers present a good opportunity for economically constrained institutions and students. AI will substantially decrease the costs of education, thus, making it available to a wider audience. Moreover, AI-led education will allow customized learning, turning the process into a more personal and effective experience for students (Rdt, 2018). Considering the shortage of teachers worldwide, AI tutors are also a good alternative to fill in empty vacancies while a human instructor is found.
As a result, I believe that balance should be found in the future so that professors and teachers are AI-supported in order to maximize classroom efficiency but without being fully replaced. For this, it will be essential to design AI systems that are capable of working side-by-side with professors and teachers (Rdt, 2018). Technologies like Jill, already provide a glimpse of what a classroom environment will look like in the future and I am confident that its capabilities will go far beyond. This will allow institutions to decrease costs, boost productivity and generate new opportunities (Rdt, 2018). Nevertheless, I feel that due to technological and monetary pressures, it is inevitable to fully avoid exclusively AI-led classrooms. In my opinion, they should only be implemented where it is physically and truly economically impossible to have a human professor. Evidently, an AI tutor is better than no tutor at all.
In the end, only the future will tell how AI will reshape education.
References:
Haw, M 2019, ‘Will AI replace university lecturers? Not if we make it clear why humans matter’, The Guardian,viewed 16 September. <https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/sep/06/will-ai-replace-university-lecturers-not-if-we-make-it-clear-why-humans-matter >
Maderer, J 2016, Artificial Intelligence Course Creates AI Teaching Assistant, GeorgiaTech, accessed 16 September, <https://www.news.gatech.edu/2016/05/09/artificial-intelligence-course-creates-ai-teaching-assistant >
Rdt, S 2018, The future of education and how AI can help shape it, Luminovo.ai, accessed 16 September, <https://medium.com/luminovo/the-future-of-education-and-how-ai-can-help-shape-it-6f1202f4757d >
