A private school in London is opening the UK’s first classroom taught by artificial intelligence instead of human teachers. They say the technology allows for precise, bespoke learning while critics argue AI teaching will lead to a “soulless, bleak future”.
The UK’s first “teacherless” GCSE class, using artificial intelligence instead of human teachers, is about to start lessons.
David Game College, a private school in London, opens its new teacherless course for 20 GCSE students in September.
The students will learn using a mixture of artificial intelligence platforms on their computers and virtual reality headsets.
You make a fair point and a tool made specifically for this would probably be a real boon for teachers, but I doubt they incorporated it into their system.
I’m imagining something slapped together. Basically just an AI voice assistant rewording course material and able to receive voice inputs from students if they have questions. I doubt they even implemented voice recognition to differentiate between students.
Edit: I’m imagining it wrong, every student gets his own AI.
That said time will tell and if it shows a bit of promise, it will probably be useful for homework help and what not in the near future. It just seems early to be throwing it in a class. At least, it isn’t a public school where parents wouldn’t have a choice.
For what it’s worth, most AI tools being used in corporate environments aren’t generative AI like ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion. I very much doubt it will create new material, as much as control how the pre-written material is given to the students.
I went to a charter high school as a kid, and all our classes were done on computers. The teacher was in the room if you had questions that the software couldn’t answer, but otherwise everything was completely self-paced. I imagine the AI being used in this school is going to be similar, where all the materials are already vetted, and the algorithm determines how and when a student proceeds through the class. The article refers to the classrooms having “learning coaches”, who seem to serve the same purpose the teachers in my school did, as well.
It’s quite funny reading these threads and it’s full of the same technophobia. I wish I had the opportunity to have a specialised tool to help me learning when I was in highschool. I’ve gone back to university and there’s so many tools available now it’s amazing