Major AI in Education Related Developments this week
ASU integrates with ChatGPT, K-12 AI integrations, Agents & the Rabbit, Uruguay, Meta and AGI, Rethinking curriculum
“The greatest risk is leaving school curriculum unchanged when the entire world is changing.”
Hadi Partovi, founder Code.org, Angel investor in Facebook, DropBox, AirBnb, Uber
*A major university integrates with ChatGPT
*K-12 integrations with ChatGPT and AI
*Agents and the Rabbit
*Uruguay implements AI training in schools
*Meta and AGI
*Rethinking curriculum
This week there have been some very significant developments in AI that are related to education.
Integration with educational institutions. Arizona State University (ASU) is pioneering a collaboration with OpenAI (ChatGPT), to integrate the advanced version of ChatGPT, known as ChatGPT Enterprise, into their educational and organizational framework. This partnership aims to utilize the potential of AI to revolutionize teaching, learning, and research. In February, ASU plans to launch a challenge for faculty and staff to propose optimal use cases for this technology.
The initiative focuses on three primary areas: improving student success, encouraging research, and optimizing organizational processes. The goal is to use ASU's extensive expertise and resources to lead in the discovery and application of AI in education.
This is a reminder that GPT Enterprise affords you the same level of privacy protection you are getting with any other technology you are already licensing for your school, as GPT Enterprise does not use any of your data for training.
In K-12, Isaac School District #5 Superintendent Mario Ventura brought his entire leadership team of 70 people across all departments to learn and experiment with the possibilities of ChatGPT. In the end, the enthusiasm of the team as they ideated and tested use cases led them to purchasing a ChatGPT Teams license for everyone.
Why it matters: Educators and students who are part of these institutions and have access are going to both learn with AIs and use them to massively boost their productivity, saving overworked educators time and strengthening work. Students will learn how to work with AI (agents (more on that below)) and develop the second-most in-demand skill set: (generative) AI skills.
Tutorbots in college. On a more limited scale, Georgia State University, Morgan State University, and the University of Central Florida are piloting a project using chatbots to support students in foundational math and English courses. Funded by a $7.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Institute for Student Success (NISS) at Georgia State will lead this initiative. This project builds on studies showing that AI-enhanced chatbots can increase grades and retention, particularly among lower-income and first-generation students.
These chatbots will be deployed in first-year math and English courses at the participating universities. The aim is to provide personalized and timely support, complementing the instructors' efforts. These chatbots will answer basic questions, remind students of assignments, and offer encouragement.
Tim Renick, the project lead, highlights the chatbots' potential to assist students with jobs and families who might miss after-class tutoring. Georgia State has been using such technology since 2016, initially to reduce "summer melt" (high school graduates failing to register for college). This effort successfully decreased summer melt from 19% to 9%.
Similarly, in the UAE, every K-12 student will have an AI tutor. I believe all students in Singapore have these as well.
In K–12, we have tutor bots teaching the entire curriculum in a private school in Austin. The Otermans Institute has debuted a nine-lesson course using only AI Digital Human Teachers.
Why it matters: Students who attend some educational institutions will be able to access high-quality tutors that are unlikely to hallucinate and are tied to the curriculum to support them 24/7. Given the established benefits of individual tutoring, this is likely to provide them with an academic boost. There is not yet research on whether or not AI teachers alone can teach content effectively.
Technology and the human touch. Cottesmore School in the UK has become the first educational institution in the country to install WiFi 7. This pioneering step positions the school at the forefront of technological advancement in education. The new WiFi system will enable a large number of devices like VR headsets, laptops, tablets, and mobiles to operate concurrently without any performance issues. As Head of School Tom Rogerson explains, this technological upgrade is seen as crucial for supporting a modern, evolving curriculum and for facilitating AI conferences, festivals, and other events at Cottesmore School, marking a significant leap towards 'Education 3.0'.
Over the past 9 months I’ve gotten to know Tom, and the best thing about Tom is not that he’s so forward thinking on technology, but he’s committed to prioritizing the development of the whole child: “Designing a child-centred ‘Education 3.0’ classroom for an outdoorsy, traditional setting like Cottesmore School requires a quantum planning experience. Cottesmore still respects academic rigour & strongly promotes ‘sit-down-at-lunch-‘saying-please-and-thank-you’ type values. We engage in more outdoor team sports daily than any other prep school we know of. We also invest much energy in promoting creativity & the arts.”
Agents. Agents are AIs that can carry out a set of tasks when given goals, such as doing research, interacting with other AIs to plan meetings, administering tests, etc. In the Davos panel on LLMs, Andrew Ng said current agents can work autonomously, carrying out tasks for approximately 30 minutes on their own, but noted that we should expect to see large advances this year with the amount of money and intellectual talent being devoted to improving the agents (“Rather than prompt an LLM, it gives you a response. You can give an LLM an instruction, it'll go off and do work for you for half an hour, and browse web pages, and do a lot of research and come back. This is not totally working right now, but a lot of people are working on it to achieve another innovation.”).
Why it matters: Students in places like the ASU will learn how to work with agents (they will work well in GPT5), agents will radically expand the abilities of AI teachers and tutors, and agents will result in significant labor disruptions.
The rabbit. Rabbit (r1) is a device that acts as your assistant and will develop as an agent; it takes voice commands or vision input, can access your mobile apps all at once through voice, and gets you a response. It is being called a Large Action Model (LAM) on a device. Perplexity.ai, which is trying to unseat Google in search (and is awesome), has a partnership with Perplexity where you can get free perplexity.ai for a year and use it in the rabbit. Perplexity is also available in Apple’s new VR devices—you can search from right inside the device.
Why it matters: Everyone, including students, can now roll around with AI agents in their pockets.
Uruguay. GitHub has collaborated with the government of Uruguay to launch an AI skills development program targeted at high school students in the country. The primary objectives of this initiative are to motivate students in Uruguay to consider careers in AI and to cultivate a workforce proficient in AI.
The curriculum for this program is designed to introduce students to fundamental AI concepts through hands-on, project-based learning, primarily using Python. This curriculum aligns with international standards for AI education and enables students to work on various projects, including the development of chatbots, neural networks, and computer vision applications.
GitHub is playing a significant role in supporting this initiative by providing funding. The Uruguayan government is contributing by offering the necessary facilities, equipment, and training for teachers. A representative from Uruguay's National Agency for Research and Innovation highlighted the need to transform Uruguay into an AI-driven economy through investment in education Overall, this collaborative effort between GitHub and the Uruguayan government is aimed at developing AI talent and enhancing workforce readiness among Uruguayan students.
Meta and AGI. Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled updates about their new AI initiative, Llama 3. This project is set to encompass a wide range of AI capabilities, focusing on Full General Intelligence (AGI), Assistants, and tailored applications for Creators and Businesses. It also aims to advance cognitive abilities in AI, including Reasoning, Planning, Coding, and Memory. Meta's approach includes open-sourcing the project, ensuring that Llama 3 is responsibly accessible and beneficial for a broad spectrum of users.
In support of this initiative, Meta is heavily investing in its infrastructure. The company plans to deploy 350,000 H100 GPUs by year's end, amounting to a total compute power equivalent to nearly 600,000 H100 GPUs when considering other GPU types. Zuckerberg envisions a future where interactions with AI become a daily routine, facilitated by new devices like glasses.
Why it matters: This is another path towards developing very advanced intelligence. Remember that GPT4 is a “preview.”
Rethinking curriculum. Yes, the entire world is changing, with AIs ability to function as a copilot improving substantially, and some basic ideas of autopilot are starting to emerge. Some schools are integrating AI and preparing their students for the AI world by supporting AI literacy, supporting AI computer skills, and helping students develop critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills they’ll need for the AI world.
Hopefully many schools will add AI literacy to their curriculum as soon as possible, and I’m excited to be working on the one I think is the best :). Most schools already have some type of computer science programs that just need expanded, and many are working hard to integrate critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills into the curriculum and support programs such as debate, model UN, Future Business Leaders of America (etc). Schools just need to 10X those programs and get all students involved.
Check out our report: Humanity Amplified: The Fusion of Deep Learning and Human Insight to Shape the Future of Innovation