The rude interruption of AI in our lives! (Or not so rude?)

Artificial intelligence, otherwise known as AI, has intruded our lives in many ways. Although, the change may seem insignificant to us believe it or not our lives have been greatly affected. AI, artificial intelligence, according to Merriam-Webster, “the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations, the skilled use of reason.” Albert Einstein also once said, “the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” Skilled reason or imagination? The choice is yours! The difficulty in finding a clear definition of what intelligence is, also affects our understanding on the essence of AI. How do we quantify the unquantifiable? How do we measure what we cannot define? Ed Burns wrote, “Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. Specific applications of AI include expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition and machine vision.” This might be a bit too much for people who do not really understand the topic, so, not to bore you with intellectual flim-flam; AI in simple terms is the simulation of human thinking, reason and/or decision making through a neural network. The possibilities are endless, from search optimization, AI-powered Assistants, and even Autonomous Vehicles like what we see at Tesla. And to my fellow struggling students, Personalized Learning. The way in which AI has transformed the educational sector is frankly quite breathtaking. This essay evaluates exactly the extent to which AI has affected the educational sector.

Education is the procedure of delivery or offering systematic instruction, especially at a school, university or any institution that deals with the direct impact of knowledge or skills on an individual in a productive manner. Basically, a way information or knowledge is communicated within a group of people.  I know it may seem unlikely for such a situation to be replicated in any technological capacity, however, advances in AI have made computers faster and better in interpreting the world around us, with the use of computer vision and other outstanding developments. Believe it or not this is happening at an exponential rate. Currently, decisions that would take humans a lifetime to complete are now made within seconds.

AI offers so many opportunities not only to the educational sector but cuts across all other sectors of life. AI may modify and even perfect the education sector, AI can acclimate to each student's understanding, level of knowledge, speed of learning and desired goals in a particular subject area simply put, optimizing their learning experience and getting the most out of their education. Nevertheless, no chatbot can truly replace an educator or teacher, AI tools can push students to sharpen their skills and improve weak spots in and out of the classroom, a reach most teachers may find hard to influence. AI is not going to completely replace the integral role of the teacher anytime soon; it is however going to change how teachers interact with students—and it might well put the jobs of teaching assistants at jeopardy. In the years to come, AI will continue to progressively take over the routine and repetitive tasks of teaching and other sectors that may require a new level of automation to optimize efficiency, performance, and production. We can see this in the roll-out of intelligent tutoring systems, automated scoring software for essay and early warning systems to recognize struggling students who may be failing their classes

Many believe AIs future in the classroom is as an enhanced digital assistant, a test setter, handling routine and repetitive tasks and inquiries, providing data for schoolwork, and supporting information, and setting assignments in response to student needs. According to Robert Murphy, senior policy researcher for RAND Education, "the work of teachers and the act of teaching can't be completely automated like repetitive tasks taking place on the manufacturing floor. Good teaching is complex and requires creativity, flexibility, improvisation, and spontaneity. Teachers need the abilities to think logically and apply common sense, compassion and empathy to deal with the everyday non-academic issues and problems that arise in the classroom."  

However, as more homework is being graded by machines, more students will make use of online academic writing services or pay people online to do their work for them or to get help with their papers and essays written by someone from scratch. More college students will feel the urge to use and pay for such online services to get ahead or stay on top of class since there is no physical entity to scrutinize their work. After all, if no human reads assignments, does it matter who the work is really from and how it was written? If the machine gives it a pass, is that not what the education system requires? This is one of many ethical issues that AI can’t solve. There may not be a coming apocalypse of AI in the education sector, but the spreading effect of AI on virtually everything is true, there may be no stopping it and therefore we must embrace it. We must all work together ethically to utilize this asset for the greater good.