The first-ever robot to complete a college course has now taught one — at West Point, Axios reported Wednesday.
The brainy bot, Bina48 — who has her own Facebook page — was part of an experiment at the Military Academy to see if artificial intelligence can "support a liberal education model," William Barry, a West Point professor who’s been using Bina48 to teach for years, Axios reported.
According to the news outlet, the bot on Wednesday co-taught two sessions of an introduction to ethics philosophy course to a class of nearly 100 students, along with Barry and Maj. Scott Parsons, an assistant professor at West Point.
Barry says the aim was to understand if AI “can authentically support teaching in the classroom, where it enhances students’ comprehension and holds interest,” Axios reported.
According to Axios, Bina48’s prep was getting “troves” of data about war theory and political philosophy, in addition to Barry's lesson plan.
“We asked not to hook her on the internet ... because she can easily run to Wikipedia or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,” Barry says, Axios reported. “We want to run her just on the algorithm.”
“Before the class, they thought it might be too gimmicky or be entertainment. … They were blown away because she was able to answer questions and reply with nuance.,” Barry told Axios. “The interesting part was that [the cadets] were taking notes.”
Still, Bina48 isn’t ready for West Point, the cadets concluded, Axios reported; they decided the bot didn’t keep pace with the class.
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