The Best College Is Using An AI Professor Next Year
Even though we’re barely into July, a new school year is looming just over the horizon. With an entirely new batch of young adults preparing to ship off for their four years at a University, one of the top schools in the country has announced that things are about to change in a big way. According to the school’s student-run newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University will be testing out teaching by way of AI.
For those students who signed up for the prestigious university’s entry-level coding course, CS50, they may be shocked to find out that there won’t be a human leading their class, but instead they’ll be taught by an AI instructor.
Why is Harvard using AI to teach classes?
While this means there won’t be office hours for the young adults to take advantage of, CS50 professor David Malan said that the ultimate goal was to achieve a 1:1 teacher:student ratio so that students will have the help that they need at their fingertips whenever they should find themselves in a bind.
The software behind the students’ new robot overlords is none other than GPT 3.5 and GPT4 models with the University vowing to continue their reach into the field of technology to provide their attendees with the freshest new bits that AI has to offer.
Unfortunately for those looking to get a human-based education, some of those kids moving to Harvard in the fall are going to be less than pleased that their hard-earned dollars are going to an AI system that has been proven to have a handful of faults. And, even though the GPT models aren’t foolproof, the University is willing to take the chance and see how replacing a human teacher goes.
Harvard University’s entry-level coding course will be taught by AI next fall.
While it may not have been a fixture in our everyday conversations a few years ago, artificial intelligence has been growing by leaps and bounds over the last year alone, quickly dominating debates and news stories around the globe.
Coming in all shapes and sizes, from robot dogs to robot spiders, and too-close-to-home lifelike bots, the AI wave has catapulted itself to the headlines of world news on a daily basis. But, many are beginning to wonder if we’ve already gone too far and, if not, how far can we push it.
Fully replacing a human professor with a machine could prove to be dangerous for the future of the educational system.
In the last few months alone, we’ve brought you news stories about AI passing law exams and scientists using the technology to clone humans. With every new and exciting step forward, there’s the worry in the back of our heads wondering if it will all inevitably catch up to us in some sort of Battlestar Galactica-like way, turning the world into a much worse place than we could imagine.
While we may (hopefully) be a long way off from any apocalyptic type scenario, the news out of Harvard University is another concerning how greed may drive the future of AI. Even though, on paper, having more help for students would be a terrific thing, fully replacing a human professor with a machine could prove to be dangerous for the future of the educational system.
With schools looking to cut budgets however possible, there’s no telling the long-lasting effects that this new technology could have.
