AI Assists with World’s Most Popular Online Computer Course
Harvard University’s CS50, the most widely used online learning course globally, is undergoing a ChatGPT-inspired transformation.
CS50, an introductory computer science course with hundreds of students on campus and more than 40,000 online, plans to use artificial intelligence to grade assignments, teach coding and customize learning cues, says its professor, David J. Malan.
Allow Malan’s energetic and engaging teaching style to transform a dry beginner’s lecture on the basics of web development and software programming into an entertaining class full of interactive exercises. According to him, even with more than a hundred real-life teaching assistants, it is becoming difficult to fully cope with the increasing number of students logging in from different time zones and varying knowledge and experience.
“Providing tailored support for student questions has been a challenge on a large scale because there are more students than teachers online,” Malan, 46, said in a phone interview.
His team is now improving an artificial intelligence system to correct student jobs and testing virtual technical analysis to evaluate and provide feedback on student programs. A virtual TA asks rhetorical questions and makes suggestions to help students learn, rather than just finding errors and fixing code errors. In the long term, this is expected to give technical assistants more time for in-person or Zoom-based work time.
The effort comes at a time when teachers fear that technologies like ChatGPT could allow more students to cheat and plagiarize without being noticed. Some public schools and universities around the world have banned it. The rise of artificial intelligence has also affected the stocks of online education companies, including Chegg Inc. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based homework company recently reported a slowdown in subscriber growth as people tried out its free chatbot created by OpenAI.
Malan said CS50’s use of AI could highlight its benefits in education, particularly in improving the quality and availability of online learning — an industry that Grand View Research predicts will grow to $348 billion by 2030, nearly three times what it was in 2022.
“It’s possible that AI can greatly enable education,” he said.
CS50 started out as one introductory computing class, but has now grown into multiple classes with 1.4 million YouTube subscribers and branded merchandise like stress balls and t-shirts. Over the years, more than 4.7 million people have taken the course. It’s now available as part of the edX digital learning platform created by Harvard and MIT to offer university-level online courses on a variety of topics.
However, some experts recommend caution when using artificial intelligence, as the technology is still in its early stages of development and prone to errors. Earlier this week, the CEOs of leading AI companies, including Alphabet Inc’s OpenAI and DeepMind, issued a statement. , issued a statement warning of the “danger of extinction” posed by artificial intelligence.
Others said its use in teaching also poses ethical risks, especially when collecting data to personalize lessons.
“To ensure student privacy, platforms must be ‘built in’ with privacy and ensure that data collection processes are transparent,” said Emma Taylor, an analyst at London-based consultancy GlobalData Plc.
