Anicet Mbida 06:51, 05 July 2023

Anicet Mbida gives us every morning what is best in innovation.

The innovation of the day is artificial intelligence that invites itself into classrooms. Many schools prohibit it, but Harvard University will use it to assist its professors.

It will be from the beginning of the next school year for computer courses. Students will have flesh-and-blood teachers, but also an electronic teacher, a chatbot like ChatGPT. He will provide advice, correct the copies and answer students' questions.

You recalled the outcry from the educational world when ChatGPT was launched at the end of last year. We were worried about the risks of cheating, plagiarism, fabricated sources... It is therefore interesting to see one of the most prestigious universities in the world, adopt artificial intelligence to assist its teachers, in one of its flagship courses.

How do they justify it? They want to save teachers?

No. At more than 40,000 € a year, it would be bad kind ...

On the contrary, their goal is to achieve, one day, a ratio of one teacher to one student. This would allow for individualized follow-up. But as I said, computer science is one of the most followed courses with nearly 1000 students for only fifty teachers. They will therefore rely on artificial intelligence to provide this personalized support.

I clarify, they do not use ChatGPT, but a similar language model. Because they do not want to give the answer directly to the student, simply keys to understanding to guide him to the right solution.

The assistant must allow everyone to progress at their own pace, with their own style. Above all, it must free up teachers' time so that they can really take care of those who need it most.

And what happens if the assistant makes mistakes (this is often the case with this type of artificial intelligence)?

Here, I will quote the course leader:

"We will make it clear to students that they must always think critically when receiving information, whether it comes from a human or software." Admit that this is not very reassuring...

Good news: these courses will be available for free online with the famous assistant doped with artificial intelligence. If you also want to have access to human teachers, you will have to register at Harvard and pay more than €40,000 per year.