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Professor Surprises Students With AI Teacher Assistant (smh.com.au)

Posted by BeauHD on from the teacher-assistant dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Jill Watson is an artificial intelligence bot, it is also Ashok Goel's teaching assistant. Ashok Goel, a computer science professor at Georgia Tech, hired Jill Watson to answer questions online for his students so that his teaching staff wasn't so overworked. On average, Goel and his staff receive more than 10,000 questions from students online each semester. So he decided to use IBM Watson, an artificial intelligence system designed to answer questions. After training and tweaking it for months, he was able to spit out good enough answers. Originally, Goel didn't reveal Watson's true identity to his students until after the last final exam was turned in at the end of the class. Students were amazed. "I feel like I am part of history because of Jill and this class!" wrote one student in the class's online forum. "Just when I wanted to nominate Jill Watson as an outstanding TA in the CIOS survey!" said another. Goel is now working to bring the bot to as as many education centers are possible. He expects the bot's question-answering abilities to help online classes, where there's little engagement with a human instructor.

3 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. Fail by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've been in American college classrooms. This won't work unless Jill has a thick, unintelligble accent.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    1. Re:Fail by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Funny

      Confirmation bias -- you sure that the American students realize that those higher level math courses are only needed if one wants to become a math professor themselves?

      Nonsense. Those higher-level math courses are the ones that get used in applied science. For example, my wife's specialty is in numerical analysis and simulation of waves. Used in everything from climate science to wireless communications and acoustics and even nuclear physics.

      If you think all math above the level of Calculus is only for academics, then you must be an American.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  2. Re:Wow by stephanruby · · Score: 4, Funny

    So did that thing just accidentally pass the Turing test?

    Pretty much.

    Here is an actual transcript of the winning entry.

    Student: Where is the homework? I couldn't find it.
    TA: That answer is in the Syllabus. Did you not read it?

    Student: Ah ok, I found it. I couldn't find the homework in time yesterday. Can I turn in my homework late?
    TA: That answer is in the Syllabus. Did you not read it?

    Student: I did read it, but I was wondering if you could make an exception.
    TA: That answer is in the Syllabus. Did you not read it?

    Student: Ok, ok. Thanks anyway.
    TA: You're welcome.