When a group of 7 satellites were put in orbit, ‘Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) seven years ago, they provided real-time positioning and timing services making Global positioning system (GPS) service operative in India. The turn-by-turn voice-guided instructions on how to arrive at a given destination made our travel easy. Artificial intelligence (AI) with associated data made travel even better, answering questions related to traffic conditions. That it used historical traffic patterns to predict the traffic at one location based on how it was in the past is a tribute to human ingenuity.
If that was while we were travelling, Alexa and SIRI made our lives even better when we are at home. What is the weather like outside today? Alexa replies ‘it’s cold at -12 degrees and it is snowing’. Further when it suggests one to stay indoors and not venture out that day since more snow was predicted, it becomes an instant friend.
Alexa actually, has several built-in “skills,” like being able to play music, play any device, answer questions, or give weather forecasts. There are thousands of other skills created by third-party developers, everything from quizzes to games to meditations, that can be accessed through Alexa. SIRI, an Apple product is very similar. Xbox Network of Microsoft connects gaming community anywhere and has capabilities like taking screenshots, use the footage to create amazing videos, add commentary on the fly and share them with friends and even broadcast.
The possibilities are endless. Simply ask Alexa answers to the most common questions of the curriculum or life on the campus or course information or seek feedback and advice. Integrate into smart classrooms so instructors can use Alexa to turn on room control or trigger lecture-capture systems. It can even deal with more complex conversations to assist students navigate their academic journey. Google-Home is a Wi-Fi speaker that also works as a smart home control hub and a personal assistant for the entire family. One can use it to playback entertainment throughout one’s home, effortlessly manage everyday tasks, and ask Google things one wants to know.
How does all this work? Automatic speech recognition (ASR) is the technology that converts spoken words into text and makes Alexa like devices smart. Voice User Interfaces (VUI) have been added to automobiles, home appliances like washing machines, microwave ovens, and television remote controls. VUI is the interface for virtual assistants on smartphones and smart speakers.
AI is ever evolving. Even before we fully understood Alexa or SIRI effectively, we will now have to contend with ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI which specializes in dialogue, trained as it is on massive digital text from the internet. Simply put, ChatGPT is a software that acts as a personal assistant. It helps answer questions, helps with assignments, helps with homework, sets reminders and so on. It can even write nearly anything in seconds.
ChatGPT, (Chat-generative pre-trained transformer), is a conversational dialogue model trained by AI and machine learning. It’s a deep learning model with three or more layers of neural network that stimulates the behaviour like a human brain would do while reading or writing. It understands human language and responds in the way humans do. ChatGPT can remember conversations, even admits to mistakes, challenges, premises, or even declines to answer sometimes.
Can these devices be the adaptations to future learning? Can they enhance cognitive abilities and improve experiential learning? New pedagogies must evolve that use technology intuitively. In a country with a perennial problem of finding good teachers and in large numbers as to teach in our schools meaningfully, VUI probably offers an alternative. Of course, there are challenges and concerns to overcome. A serious challenge, is deciphering ambiguity in a context based natural language processing.
Technology may be good while it lasts. However, it is a serious issue when a child seeks the answer from Alexa for (5 – 3). Cognitive skill development in children involves the progressive building of learning skills, such as attention, memory and thinking. These important skills enable children to process sensory information which enables them to evaluate, analyze, remember, make comparisons and understand cause and effect. Can we hypothecate such skill development to machines? That will be injustice to a whole new generation. Is it not easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults?