AI has been in development for decades, but now it might actually have a practical use. Bill Gates recently started an initiative to use it for personalized learning in the classroom.
Artificial Intelligence has been a topic of interest for decades. Everyone wants to know if man will eventually be replaced by machine. Given IBM’s Watson recent fail at dressmaking, humans can rest assured machines can’t replace us entirely. So what can they do? Bill Gates thinks they can replace our approach to teaching.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invested more than $240 million to date towards the development of “personalized learning” AI technology. The blanket term refers to an initiative to develop software that can better assess how well students perform in various subjects, so they can receive extra help if struggling with a particular task, or move forward independently if they are ahead of their class.
The software would be ideal for incoming college students who needs additional help in certain subjects, but might not need the full review remedial classes require. According to Gates, many college dropouts view the remedial class requirement and testing as a roadblock to receiving a degree. Many students do not receive college credit for taking such classes, but must still pay to take them if they are required.
The new AI learning software would be able to pinpoint with which concepts a student struggles, so he or she may receive tutoring specific to that subject, instead of having to repeat all concepts taught in high school. The program would also reform how traditional lessons are taught in the classroom, as teachers would be able to keep tabs on how each student performs across endless factors and variables. If the program finds most students in a classroom reasonably understand gerunds, for example, the English lesson can go on.
Similar projects are already underway. Google launched its aggregated education bulletin platform, Classroom, in 2014, and Facebook announced a recent partnership with the Summit Public Schools. Part of Gates’ mission is to encourage larger research institutions, investors, and school systems to run pilot programs with AI and personalized learning programs, to truly determine their future in the education system.
With this, Microsoft is working at making AI more fun. The company just launched an app called CaptionBot that fills in photo captions for you. It’s not incredibly useful, but it is an example of what Microsoft’s Cognitive Services app development platform can do. It’s a program that allows developers to make apps with machine learning technology, which could include facial recognition, object identification, and more.
Other recent AI initiatives include the OpenAI Gym. Currently in Beta testing, the platform is backed by Elon Musk and allows users to play various games, including Go and Atari games, so computers can learn about common gaming strategies. The platform could become something like Google’s DeepMind, which has become a fierce Go competitor. But, like all things, the more information developers can gather about how humans make decisions, the further we can push AI into the innovative force we all believe it can be.
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