583271 external_news 1477680488 1477680637 <![CDATA[When the Teaching Assistant Is a Robot]]> Last spring, Ashok K. Goel pulled off one of the great pranks in the history of artificial intelligence. In an online course, Mr. Goel, a computer-science professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, relied on nine teaching assistants, including one named Jill Watson, to handle questions from the 300 students. Near the end of the term, Mr. Goel revealed to students that Jill was in fact a computerized assistant, powered by IBM’s Watson technology, which is designed to answer questions. A few students had suspicions about Jill along the way, but one thought Mr. Goel might be a computer, too.

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.chronicle.com/article/When-the-Teaching-Assistant-Is/238114

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