I’ve started doing some research on Artificial Intelligence. I’m mainly interested in its application to support learning for the millions of potential “students” who find themselves outside of a formal educational system either because of lack of opportunity or poverty. The idea would be that personalized learning scaffolding could be built through AI to fit the educational trajectory that a student needs to take. My desire to start down that AI road began before OpenAI’s Chat GPT came to the forefront.
As OpenAI came into my purview, I listened to an interview of Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, to see if I could pick up any clues as to what might be coming down the AI pipe. Altman said that AI is the biggest technological platform of our generation—a legitimate revolution. He said that with AI, the marginal costs of intelligence and energy are trending towards zero. AI will impact ALL computing and will quicken iteration cycles. He said we will see an explosion of new companies that will use the large language model as a service.
The main societal issue at the beginning of the AI revolution will be disruption of economic activity. He suggested that we will need to have a new social contract on how we think about fairly distributing wealth, who will get access to AGI systems, and how governance will work. I think the AI disruption will also affect how we think about education, how it is distributed, what even is the nature of education. What will it be that we need to learn? Who will determine what we need to learn?
In the spirit of OpenAI, I decided to ask ChatGPT “What are the best ways in which AI can support learning?” I was surprised at its ability to immediately inform me of five different ways articulated in succinct terms. Here is what it gave back.
AI can support learning in several ways, including:
- Personalized Learning: AI can personalize learning experiences for individual students, using algorithms to adapt to their needs and progress. This can help students learn at their own pace, with content and activities that are tailored to their specific learning style and level.
- Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Intelligent tutoring systems can provide real-time feedback to students, helping them understand and learn from mistakes, and improve their skills. These systems can also track student progress and suggest activities or resources to help them improve.
- Automated Grading: AI-powered tools can help automate grading and provide more consistent and objective evaluations of student work. This can save teachers time and provide students with faster feedback on their progress.
- Adaptive Testing: Adaptive testing systems can use AI algorithms to dynamically adjust the difficulty level of questions based on the student’s performance. This can help identify knowledge gaps and provide more accurate assessments of student learning.
- Content Creation: AI can also be used to create educational content, such as videos or interactive simulations, that is tailored to specific learning objectives and student needs.
By incorporating AI into the learning process, students can benefit from more personalized and adaptive learning experiences, faster and more consistent feedback, and access to high-quality educational resources.