Students did not realize that the teaching assistant was actually a robot, not a human being

The evolution of artificial intelligence is remarkable, and advanced computers capable of natural conversation with humans are appearing. Meanwhile, when researchers in the United States introduced a teaching assistant (TA) using artificial intelligence and adapted it to online students, it has been reported that TA did not notice that it was a computer as anyone .

Imagine Discovering That Your Teaching Assistant Really Is a Robot - WSJ
http://www.wsj.com/articles/if-your-teacher-sounds-like-a-robot-you-might-be-on-to-something-1462546621

A research team of Professor Ashok Gor of Georgia Institute of Technology said IBM's Artificial Intelligence SystemWatson (Watson)"We used an experiment to make TA of online learning program charge computer. In addition, in the experiment, the fact that there is a TA of a computer by a student online learning has been hidden.


Computer TA answering questions and consulting students gave a woman 's name "Jill Watson". Until we actually responded to the students, Goal professors and others got Jill to read mail and chats from about 40,000 students and learned how to respond to questions and consultation. And, as Jill himself responds only to the question that it decided "It can answer correctly with 97% or more precision", as one of nine TA for nine students who are studying online who actually do online learning, We began operating Jill since January 2016.

Actual student interaction with Jill, for example, against Eric Wilson 's student' s "I've missed the correct feedback ...", Jill said "Regrettably, There is no way to fix it, "it will be answered by e-mail in 3 minutes, and so on.

After all, there was no student who saw Jill is a computer by the time that Jill was revealed that he was not a human but a computer. However, because Jill's reply is too soon, there seems to be a suspicious pupil among them.

All the students who were crowded that Jill was a robot TA using an artificial intelligence system were all surprised to be surprised. Students who said "the conversation was normal and like a human being" or students saying "I thought that it was a white woman around 20 years old", such as having an unnatural point of interaction with e-mail with Jill I can tell from the reaction of the students that I was not there.

According to goal professor, the greatest problem in online learning that gives opportunities for learning to far more students compared with actual classroom lectures is that it corresponds to a large number of questions received from students . The majority of the student's questions are typical questions that will be received many times in the future and in the future, TA is busy dealing with this common and answered question It seems that there is a present condition. Therefore, if a robot TA that can respond to typical questions and consultations like Jill is put to practical use, it can be expected that "human" TA will concentrate on "deeper content interaction" that can only be done by human TA , Online learning is thought to be able to achieve greater results.


To the students who are taking online learning next year, change the name of Jill and continue to carry out the experiment in advance by saying, "There is only one person in the TA that is not a human being" It seems to be studying.