IA Chatbot for Public Schools with a Tropical Look Before You Start

[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]

An artificial intelligence platform is said to be an “educational friend” to a million former students of Los Angeles Public Schools. Over the course of conversations, it will orient students to academic resources and mental health, or tell parents if their children attended class that day; including sharing their most recent exam results. It is able to recognize and respond to emotions such as hostility, anger, and sadness.

Alberto Carvalho, director of the Unificado Escolar Distrito of Los Angeles, used the right terms to talk about Ed. In a speech given in April to promote the software, he promoted that it would democratize and transform education. In response to those who do not have artificial intelligence, he asked: “Why doesn’t this educational institution make you pay attention and warn you?” “What is the motivator?”

A seventh-grade girl who tried out the chatbot, represented by a lively animation, said, “I think he handles Ed well,” Carvalho responded.

Los Angeles paid up to $6 million for the emerging company AllHere, a small fraction of the region’s $18 trillion annual investment in developing Ed. However, after Carvalho’s presentation at a technology conference in April, the founder and CEO of AllHere left his office and the company several months ago, largely in his personal capacity. The company posted on its website that savers would embrace “our current financial situation.”

Artificial intelligence companies are making a lot of money off of schools, which make tens of millions of dollars a year off the technology. Without a doubt, AllHere’s remorse has faded, with some examples of the risks of investing the money from the contributions into artificial intelligence, a technology with enormous potential but also, historically, over everyone when children are involved. There are many complicated questions in gaming, such as the privacy of student data and the accuracy of what information is provided by chatbots. In addition, IA can backfire on another situation, as it is becoming increasingly important to those responsible for education, such as parents: reduce the time that children walk in front of their eyes.

Natalie Milman, a professor of educational technology at George Washington University, confirms that the emphasis is on educational centers that have a “wait and see” focus on acquiring new technologies. While AI was certainly worth using and testing, it was important for schools to “talk about this august tool in a confusing way. There are limitations and we need to make sure we can look at it with a critical eye, as well as the potential dangers and information we can gain.”

AllHere does not respond to applications or written questions.

In an interview with Britt Vaughan, the director of the Los Angeles Unified School Board, a distinction was made between students who are “phone users during the school day” and students who use handheld computers or tablets to interact with the platform. Ed confirmed that he was “dedicated to implementing personalized instructional strategies to enhance the student learning experience.”

Anthony Aguilar, the district’s director of special education, confirmed that AllHere, a truncated version of Ed available only to families in the district’s many “priority” schools, would be phased out because students have academic and support issues.

However, this program is not a sophisticated interactive chatbot. It is a website that contains information about many other applications that the distribution uses to monitor assignments, notes, and support services. Students using the site can also perform some learning activities on the platform, such as math problems.

The chatbot promoted by Carvalho was tested with students ages 14 and up, but was disconnected to refine the way it could answer user questions, Aguilar said. The goal is to have the chatbot available in September, a complicated task, since AllHere must provide technical support and ongoing training at the school, maintaining its contract with the district. The district said it expected AllHere to be purchased and for the new owner to continue providing the services.

He also said the software idea originally came from the region, as part of Carvalho’s plan to help students recover from the academic and emotional effects of the pandemic.

Aguilar also mentioned that AllHere had won a license for his creation.

However, the project represented a huge and difficult outcome for the company, best known as a publisher of automated text messages from schools to families.

AllHere has spent $12 million on financial problems with capital, thanks to the analytics company Crunchbase. Its founder and director, Joanna Smith-Griffin, who is now 33 years old, has appeared in Forbes, CBS and other media with a very convincing story. Because she was together an old teacher who regularly challenged her former students, she founded AllHere in 2016 to help solve the problem.

The automated text messages likely appeared just as the COVID-19 pandemic began and chronic oppression exploded into a national crisis. In early 2020, AllHere acquired technology developed by economist and education technology expert Peter Bergman that allows schools to send text messages to parents about guidance, assignments, education, and other topics.

Smith-Griffin spoke about AllHere’s founding at Harvard Innovation Laboratories, a university-based program that supports student workers. The labs’ editor-in-chief, Matt Segneri, joined the program while he was in graduate school and a graduate student at Harvard University.

As with many small new businesses, the mission of the company changed over time. Last year, AllHere started talking more about an “intuitive chatbot with potential for IA”. AllHere distributes AI in the learning centers, but also maintains a human presence, ensures the safety of the company and has human moderators oversee the IA to ensure safety. A project that may stand alone and requires a lot of work.

Stephen Aguilar, a professor at the University of Southern California—without going through Anthony Aguilar—said there was “a very general problem” that the most ambitious students in technology were running into trouble. Before he started developing educational software, he worked on a number of projects that couldn’t be implemented with the software that was promised.

“The neighborhoods have much more complex needs and safety concerns,” he explained. “But be especially careful about the technical knowledge that is required to really research what you are buying.”