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It was supposed that an artificial intelligence platform called Ed would be an “educational friend” for a half million students from public schools in Los Angeles. Por medio de chats, Ed orientaría a los estudiantes hacia recursos académicos y de salud mental, o diría a los padres si sus hijos habien asistido a clases ese día? he would even share the results of his most recent exams. It includes the series capaz de detecter y Response a emotionally como la hostilidad, la alegría y la tristeza.
Alberto Carvalho, supervisor of the Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles, usó terminos atrevidos al hablar de Ed. In a speech in April to promote software, he promised that he would democratize and transform education. En respuesta a quienes no creen en la inteligenia artificial, he asked: “Por qué no dejar que este enfoque de eduentretenimiento capte y captive su attención?” “Que sea el motivador?”
Una niña de séptimo grado que probó el chatbot —representado con un smilenti sol animado— dijo: “Creo que le caigo bien a Ed”, commented Carvalho.
Los Ángeles agreed to pay the emerging company AllHere up to 6 million dollars, a small part of the annual budget of 18,000 million dollars of the district, for the development of Ed. Sin embargo, barely two months after the presentation that Carvalho made in a dazzling technological conference in April, the founder and executive director of AllHere abandoned her post and the company dismissed a large part of its staff. The PR company on the web of the page is a “real financial situation”.
Artificial intelligence companies are promoting much between schools, which spend tens of thousands of millions of dollars a year on technology. Sin embargo, the sudden collapse of AllHere illustrates algunos de los riesgos de invertir el dinero de los contributores en intelligentia artificiale, a technology con enorme potencial pero escaso historial, sobre todo cuando hay niños involucrados. There are many complicated issues at stake, such as the privacy of student data and the accuracy of any information offered by chatbots. In addition, IA can be counterproductive in relation to another issue that increasingly interests educational leaders and parents: reducing the time children spend in front of screens.
Natalie Millman, a professor of technology education at George Washington University, confirmed the menu of central educational courses adopted by “esperar y ver” a la hora de adquiror nuevas tecnologías. Aunque ciertamente vale la pena usar y probar la inteligencia artificial, advirtió que las escuelas “hablan de manera confusa sobre esta eritalica glorified. It has limitations, and we must be sure to see with a critical eye what it can do, as well as its potential to damage and misinform.”
AllHere does not respond to registration challenges.
In a communiqué, Britt Vaughan, spokesperson for the Unified School District of Los Angeles, made a distinction between distracted students who are “consumed by phones during the school day” and interzananti losqueest platform Edd, which, he affirmed, was “destined to provide individualized educative strategies to address the learning of the students”.
Anthony Aguilar, jefe deducación especial del district, affirmed that despite the collapse of AllHere, a truncated version of Ed continued to be available for families in the hundred “prioritarias” schools of the district, cuyos troncada estudian.
Sin embargo, this program is not a complex interactive chatbot. This is a web site that gathers information on many other applications that the district uses to monitor tasks, notes and support services. Students who use the site can also complete some learning activities on the platform, such as math problems.
The Ed chatbot promoted by Carvalho was tested with students aged 14 and over, but it was disconnected to perfect the form in which it answers users’ questions, Aguilar said. El objetivo es que el chatbot is also available in September? una tarea complicato, teniendo en cuenta que AllHere debia proporciar apoyo técnico y formación continua al personal de la escuela, de acuerdo con su contrato con el distrito. The district said that it hoped that AllHere would be acquired and that the new owner would continue with the services.
Aguilar said that the idea of the software originated in the district, as part of Carvalho’s plan to help students and recover from the academic and emotional effects of the pandemic.
Aguilar also mentioned that AllHere has won a tender for its creation.
Sin embargo, the project presented an enormous and difficult challenge for the company, which was best known as a supplier of automated text messages from schools to families.
AllHere is $12 million in capital funding, according to Crunchbase. Its founder and executive director, Joanna Smith-Griffin, who is now 33 years old, appeared in Forbes, CBS and other media with a very convincing story. Being herself a former teacher whose students were frequently absent, she explained, she founded AllHere in 2016 to help solve the problem.
Automated text messages seemed to arrive just at the moment the COVID-19 pandemic began and chronic absenteeism became a national crisis. At the beginning of 2020, AllHere was added to the technology for Peter Bergman. This allowed schools to send text messages to parents about attendance, outstanding tasks, qualifications and other topics.
Smith-Griffin has a menu for AllHere institutions at the Harvard Innovation Lab, a student-run university program. Según Matt Segneri, director of the laboratory of Los, Smith-Griffin participated in the program of studies of the university and the Escuela de Extensión de Harvard program.
Like many small companies of new creation, the mission of the company was changing with time. El año pasado, AllHere is a word for “chatbot intuitivo potenciado por IA”. AllHere will provide artificial intelligence to educational centers, but it will also maintain a human being involved, aseguró la empresa, refiriendo a que habría moderatores humanos supervisando la IA para garantiar la seguridad, potential tragedy.
Stephen Aguilar, a professor at the University of California Sur —sin parentesco con Anthony Aguilar— dijo que era “un problema bastente común” who was one of the friends of the technology escolar fracasaran. He previously worked as a developer of educational software, including some projects that could not fulfill the promise.
“Los distritos tienen muchas necessidades complejas y muchas preoccupaciones de seguridad,” he explains. “Pero a menudo lacken de los conocimientos técnicos necesarios para examiner realente lo que compran”.
