I choose this video from the Pittsburgh ML Summit 2019 in which Jing Tao Wang, a researcher at Google, describes some of the projects he’s developing. One that intrigued me was AttentiveLearner. I was fascinated by this because it combines several Frontier themes I was interested in: AI, MOOCS, and transhumanity, .
AttentiveLearner is designed to refocus learner engagement when studying MOOCs with mobiles. So, imagine a scenario where you’re watching say an instructional video for a course and a vehicle or pedestrian, suddenly and unexpectedly breaks your concentration by bumping into you or passing too closely. On your device, a front camera that tracks facial expressions indicates an interruption may have occurred. To corroborate this, at the same time, a back sensor, using physiological signal sensing technology, monitors your heart rate. If the AI determines that an interruption probably did occur, an adaptive reminder/review function guides the learner back, to pick up what might have been missed.
I can really see the utility of this since mobile learning takes place in real-world contexts where interruptions will be frequent and expected. It incorporates elements of transhumanity by making the device and extension of your body and of AI since the application gets progressively smarter at recognizing when your body signals are indicating an interruption.
An interesting question is what happens when this technology falls outside the direct control of the user. For example, would it be ethical for an employer to monitor worker productivity this way?
Thank you for sharing, Gary! The Chinese character section was very intriguing. I’m Chinese Canadian and throughout the years of living in Canada, I’ve lost touch with my Chinese culture. I can listen, understand, and speak simple sentences in Chinese, but I always found learning to read and write Chinese characters a real struggle. I didn’t do well in Chinese school and felt defeated, so that was the reason why I quit at a low level. I think by seeing these characters come to life, it makes it more interesting to learn the history behind how these characters came to be and it will help me remember how to write these characters. I think the goal of being able to read a Chinese restaurant menu might be more achievable than before.
Hi Sarah, as an educator one of the aspects of AI that intrigues me is how it can take up the task of scaffolding learning in the way a teacher might. Combining AI and AR, this software makes learning Chinese ideographs so interesting and effortless that it takes the dread out of learning how to read (and almost worse, write) all those thousands of characters. BTW, I studied Chinese at one time and can relate. There’s just no end to them.