By Eric Stirgus,The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It began as an experiment, and it could change how college students learn. Last year, students in Georgia Tech professor Ashok Goel’s online Masters in Computer Science class were told the questions they asked after class would be answered online by a teaching assistant named Jill Watson. What the students didn’t know is Watson is not human, but computer artificial intelligence. Georgia Tech is believed to be the only school in the nation using artificial intelligence in such fashion. Goel and other Tech researchers are working on the next phase, virtual teaching assistants that can be tutors, answering questions and asking questions. Goel believes their work has immense potential. “We get to build a future of our own imagination,” he said exuberantly. Students in courses where the teaching assistants were artificial intelligence programs say they were surprised that it wasn’t a human answering their questions.
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