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A professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant

#11

Post by tfm »

lordnacho wrote: post #7
mdorazio wrote: post #2

"Goel plans to use Jill again in a class this fall, but will likely change its name so students have the challenge of guessing which teaching assistant isn't human." This will be a fantastic Turing test, at least as far as basic question understanding and natural response formation.

Hmm, does it count to use things that are not so much to do with the course? For example, if a guy is able to answer questions at all times of day, really fast, they're either an AI or Jon Skeet. Also, real TAs have a life outside of the course. What will an AI say when you ask them whether they enjoyed last night's episode of Game of Thrones?

The software worked remarkably well in this instance because the system was well constrained, and the students weren't on the lookout for it. If they do start quizzing their new unseen TA (Dr Colin V Olutionalnet) on random trivia it could presumably deflect the query or have a few canards pre-programmed.

Re: A professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant

#12

Post by jandrese »

wyldfire wrote: post #4

That's stunning. I studied AI in undergrad and I just didn't give it enough of my focus at the time. Little did I know that in my lifetime I'd see real world evidence of computers passing the Turing Test with flying colors. Of course, Turing was right. What's outside of the set of computable sets? Not much! I recently read an article headline that talked about creeps using AI to stalk porn stars. It's interesting to…

I went to exactly two of the AI classes in my college before dropping it for a different class. It was not at all what I expected, the first two classes were totally devoted to mathematical proofs of correctness and were already going over my head.

It worked out ok in the end, the spot in the Network Programming class opened up and that's been a wildly useful skill in real life.

Re: A professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant

#13

Post by [deleted] »

wyldfire wrote: post #4

That's stunning. I studied AI in undergrad and I just didn't give it enough of my focus at the time. Little did I know that in my lifetime I'd see real world evidence of computers passing the Turing Test with flying colors. Of course, Turing was right. What's outside of the set of computable sets? Not much! I recently read an article headline that talked about creeps using AI to stalk porn stars. It's interesting to…

[deleted]

Re: A professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant

#14

Post by jandrese »

lordnacho wrote: post #7
mdorazio wrote: post #2

"Goel plans to use Jill again in a class this fall, but will likely change its name so students have the challenge of guessing which teaching assistant isn't human." This will be a fantastic Turing test, at least as far as basic question understanding and natural response formation.

Hmm, does it count to use things that are not so much to do with the course? For example, if a guy is able to answer questions at all times of day, really fast, they're either an AI or Jon Skeet. Also, real TAs have a life outside of the course. What will an AI say when you ask them whether they enjoyed last night's episode of Game of Thrones?

"I am very busy, please stick to the course material."

I wonder if the professor has it configured to learn from the student's questions? Will the bot turn into a promiscuous neo-nazi a week into the class?

Re: A professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant

#15

Post by BorgHunter »

ikeboy wrote: post #9

>Goel and his teaching assistants receive more than 10,000 questions a semester from students on the course's online forum. Is this normal?

I think that figure likely includes all contributions, not just questions. I took this same class in Summer 2015, and there are 1036 posts[0] and 11074 contributions[1] on the online forum for that class. The number of students is similar (370 in my class, 302 last semester).

[0] posts are questions and notes

[1] contributions are posts, responses, edits, followups, and comments to followups (i.e., everything)

Re: A professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant

#16

Post by oarsinsync »

exodust wrote: post #3

Already posted in original form: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11688061 I don't know why SMH would take a Washington Post story and change the title to something stupid, while keeping everything else the same, but that's what they've done. Wait.. there's one more difference. A pathetic picture of "an AI". "an AI"? Seriously SMH, just use the original title. Your editorial blundering is embarrassing, and could…

Thanks for that, the original article was a much better read.

Re: A professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant

#17

Post by dang »

exodust wrote: post #3

Already posted in original form: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11688061 I don't know why SMH would take a Washington Post story and change the title to something stupid, while keeping everything else the same, but that's what they've done. Wait.. there's one more difference. A pathetic picture of "an AI". "an AI"? Seriously SMH, just use the original title. Your editorial blundering is embarrassing, and could…

Ok, we changed the URL to that from http://www.smh.com.au/technology/innovation/professor-reveal....

Re: A professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant

#18

Post by Jordrok »

wyldfire wrote: post #4

That's stunning. I studied AI in undergrad and I just didn't give it enough of my focus at the time. Little did I know that in my lifetime I'd see real world evidence of computers passing the Turing Test with flying colors. Of course, Turing was right. What's outside of the set of computable sets? Not much! I recently read an article headline that talked about creeps using AI to stalk porn stars. It's interesting to…

Certainly an impressive result, and may have some practical application for easing the burden of repeatedly answering the same question asked in different ways. I'm not sure I would call this passing the Turing test though. The picture at the top of the original article[1] is very informative. The bot does a passable job of answering the initial question, but it seems like a canned response and when the student asks for a more in-depth explanation, a different human TA had to step in and take over. Then a couple other students in the same thread actually post that they have suspicions whether or not "Jill" is a real person.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/05/1... (Credit to exodust for posting it in a different comment)

Re: A professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant

#19

Post by ars »

This is the key:

> The system is only allowed to answer questions if it calculates that it is 97 percent or more confident in its answer.

Knowing when you don't know the answer is something that has been lacking from AI I've seen. Of course the problem is that not all AI has the option of deferring to a human.

Anyone know what percent of questions the AI answered, vs redirected?

Re: A professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant

#20

Post by burkaman »

ikeboy wrote: post #9

>Goel and his teaching assistants receive more than 10,000 questions a semester from students on the course's online forum. Is this normal?

Not 10,000 questions, 10,000 messages: http://www.news.gatech.edu/2016/05/09/artificial-intelligenc...

That article says ~300 students, 30 posts each seems pretty normal.

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