Category: Articles

If your teacher was AI, would you notice? Would you feel duped that you weren’t being taught by a real human? Or would you be awestruck by advanced technology’s capabilities? Perhaps a mix of both.

In spring of 2016, Georgia Tech professor Ashok Goel’s course about Artificial Intelligence had nine teaching assistants. One of them was not like the others; unknown to students, one of them was not human. 

Jill Watson, an artificial intelligence program implemented on IBM Watson’s platform, was fed 40 thousand forum posts from prior semesters. While students change, the questions they ask often repeat semester after semester, and Jill wouldn’t get tired of answering them as many times as needed. 

At first, Jill wasn’t very good at her job; she would use the keywords in the question but assumed wrongly what the context of the question was. Her answers weren’t released to the students until she began to answer with 97% accuracy, due to modifications of her algorithm. 

At the end of the semester, Goel finally spilt the beans, much to the awe of students who had been interacting with an AI TA for most of the semester. Only one student had guessed at the secret. Over following semesters, Goel renamed Jill with many different names and didn’t tell his students who was human and who was AI, revealing the mystery at the end of each semester. 

This experiment raised questions about whether AI will replace labor, reducing job opportunities for humans who need them. Could AI like Jill cause colleges to hire less professors and TAs to save money? In Goel’s case, he still had 8 other TAs who answered questions that Jill couldn’t. Goel hopes that in the future, as AI becomes more prevalent in education and other fields, AI will allow humans to choose creative careers instead of monotonous jobs, and fill in jobs that have a shortage of humans applying for them. 

In 2020, Carnegie Learning, an organization founded by a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, won an award for their program MATHia, an AI that offers personalized algebra tutoring. MATHia can not only guide students on a math problem, it can also predict why a student may not be understanding the concept, and target their specific misunderstanding, as well as adapting to the student’s pace and level. MATHia supported students during the pandemic, when many students were struggling with the switch to online learning. According to a study, students who used MATHia had grade averages of about 8 points greater compared to those who did not. 

This shows how AI has the potential to be a valuable addition in the classroom compared to human teachers who may not be able to tailor lessons to each student or spend one-on-one time with students who need extra support. Do you think the future of education is Artificial Intelligence? 

References

Boland, A. (2020, May 13). Mathia® by Carnegie Learning Wins “Best Artificial Intelligence Solution” in the edtech awards 2020. Business Wire. Retrieved February 18, 2022, from https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200513005646/en/MATHia%C2%AE-by-Carnegie-Learning-Wins-%E2%80%9CBest-Artificial-Intelligence-Solution%E2%80%9D-in-The-EdTech-Awards-2020

Griswold, A. (2014, March 6). This cognitive tutor software is already having a revolutionary effect. Business Insider. Retrieved February 18, 2022, from https://www.businessinsider.com/cognitive-models-and-computer-tutors-2014-3

Maderer, J. (2016). TALK OF TECH: MY TA IS AN AI. Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. Retrieved February 18, 2022, from https://www.gtalumni.org/s/1481/alumni/17/gt-magazine.aspx?sid=1481&gid=21&pgid=6668

Maderer, J. (2016, May 9). Artificial Intelligence Course creates AI Teaching assistant. Georgia Tech News Center. Retrieved February 18, 2022, from http://news.gatech.edu/news/2016/05/09/artificial-intelligence-course-creates-ai-teaching-assistant

Stirgus, E. (2017, January 31). She has quite a brain, but this teaching assistant is just not human. ajc. Retrieved February 18, 2022, from https://www.ajc.com/news/local-education/she-has-quite-brain-but-this-teaching-assistant-just-not-human/ZD8NiCkbgWOM4XaXkZ6cBL/

The recent year has brought to the forefront an unexpected, slightly unhinged new pop-culture icon: Duo, the Duolingo owl. Duolingo is a popular language-learning app that allows users to learn a variety of languages and sends daily notifications to encourage them to keep a language-learning streak. And while the messages coming from the Duo TikTok posts and comments range from threatening to completely out of pocket, the Duo owl seems to recognize the value of learning a second language. And with 3.1 million followers on the brand’s TikTok, this message seems to be reaching the world. Duo definitely has the science to back them up. It’s been thoroughly proven that as you age, multilingualism is a better predictor of cognitive ability than age, education, and gender (Kavé et al., 2008; Mohamed Zied et al., 2004).

But why does bilingualism have this effect on your brain? Many recent studies have confirmed that you regularly use more regions of your brain if you’re bilingual or multilingual, as compared to someone who is monolingual. What’s known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis could help to explain it. 

Sapir-Whorf hypothesizes that the language you speak influences how you perceive reality. This idea seems to have caught on, as there have been many research studies and fictional pieces that explore it.  

“Story of Your Life and Others” by Ted Chiang (as well as its 2016 film adaptation, The Arrival) is my favorite example of the hypothesis. Key point: An alien species arrives on Earth. Unlike us humans, who have reflectional symmetry, the aliens had rotational symmetry – think extraterrestrial octopus. In the story, these aliens communicate very differently from humans. While we write in lines and process information sequentially/linearly, the aliens wrote all at once in a nested circular pattern and processed information all at once. 

The aliens’ writing, as depicted in The Arrival (2016).

Once basic communication was established, the linguists wanted to set up a frame of communication, so they started with what we assume is constant throughout the universe: physics. The aliens could very easily understand certain physics theories that humans had a difficult time grasping, because the aliens, unlike us, didn’t perceive time sequentially. Because their language communicated information all at once, they thought about information all at once and didn’t have the same sense of past, present, and future that we have.  

The effect of language on perceived reality can be seen in the real world as well. The Hopi language, spoken by the Hopi people in northeastern Arizona, doesn’t grammatize time the same way as English and refers to it as a verb instead of a noun. This slightly alters how they perceive time. The Himba tribe in Nambia is able to differentiate between more shades of green than the average English speaker because they have words for more different shades.

The right side is easily discernible to an English speaker, whereas the left side would be just as easily discernible to a Himba speaker.

As can be seen by the RBG values in the image, the square in the same position as the blue square is a different shade of green. Most Americans have a very hard time distinguishing it. 

These differences, on a lesser scale, are present between all languages. As aptly discussed in another very interesting linguistical read, “The Idiot”, by Elif Bautman, the main character explains how she “knew [she] thought differently in Turkish and in English — not because thought and language were the same, but because different languages forced you to think about different things”. 

Given that one language influences, to some extent, how we perceive the world, it’s not a big leap to see how multilingualism would affect the way we think. While there will be some overlap, especially between similarly structured languages like the Romance Languages, each new language learned expands the areas of your brain that are regularly used and may affect how your brain processes information, even when you’re using your native language. 

The difference between brain regions used when reading and writing in Chinese and English (Cao, 2016)

Different languages use different locations and quantities of the brain. As can be seen from the image above, key examples of this are the LMFG region and Exner’s region. The LMFG region, short for the left middle frontal gyrus, plays a key role in literacy. Exner’s region helps you to process numbers and language. Multilingualism strengthens alternative brain networks within these regions to those that you usually use, allowing your brain to circuit around any deterioration that occurs with aging. This explains the strong correlation between multilingualism and cognitive ability as you age.

With this in mind, recent studies have been exploring the use of language study for those 65+, and, as expected, it is working to help reduce the deterioration (Antinou, 2013). Moral of the story: if you’re planning on outliving the Duo owl, stepping up your language learning game (or reversing some of the threats Duo regularly levels at its users) is probably your best bet.

References:

Antinou, M., Foreign language training as cognitive therapy for age-related cognitive decline: A hypothesis for future research. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24051310/ . 

Cao, F. (PDF) neural signatures of the reading-writing connection … https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311759524_Neural_Signatures_of_the_Reading-Writing_Connection_Greater_Involvement_of_Writing_in_Chinese_Reading_than_English_Reading . 

Kavé, G., Eyal, N., Shorek, A., & Cohen-Mansfield, J. (2008). Multilingualism and cognitive state in the oldest old. Psychology and Aging, 23(1), 70–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.23.1.70 

Lucy, J. A. Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B0080430767030424 . 

Newton, M. It’s not easy seeing green. https://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/its-not-easy-seeing-green/ (accessed Mar 2, 2022). 

Skibba, R. How a Second language can boost the brain. https://knowablemagazine.org/article/mind/2018/how-second-language-can-boost-brain .

In the digital age, social media has become a staple in millions, if not billions, of people’s lives. From Tumblr to Twitter, the digital space is full of many different kinds of social media platforms. What we’re looking at today, though, is TikTok, a newer platform that gained immense popularity over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Known for its video sharing capabilities, TikTok has been named the most popular website of 2021, according to Cloudflare. You either use it yourself or know someone who does, but regardless, TikTok is immensely popular, especially among millennials and Gen Z. Being such a popular platform, it’s only natural that it comes surrounded in controversy. The list could go on for a while, but dangerous trends, censorship, cultural appropriation, privacy concerns, and cyberbullying are just a handful of issues on the platform. Despite all of these concerns, the platform still has well over a billion users – why is that? The problem lies within the way the app is designed. The two key components TikTok has successfully embedded into their platform are its algorithm and the content available on it. Together, let’s look at these components and how they work together to create such a powerful, addictive social media trap.

 

One of TikTok’s most striking features is its algorithm. It curates a near-perfect ‘for you’ page, keeping users scrolling for hours and hours. The craziest part is that no two feeds are the same. How does this algorithm work exactly? Artificial intelligence and data analysis are our main suspects here. While all the details aren’t out there for the whole world to see, we know the system works by recommending videos similar to the ones you like, share and save, along with analyzing the comments you leave and accounts you follow. The algorithm monitors how much time users spend scrolling or watching videos, and it keeps collecting information to accommodate trends and changing styles. That’s the simple explanation of it, but let’s break it down a little farther. The algorithm splits user data into three categories: content, user and scenario data. Content data consists of the traits of the videos posted onto the platform so TikTok can categorize and recommend videos based on the content. User data includes profile data such as age, gender, and interest tags users choose when creating a profile. Lastly, there is scenario data, which is tracking the user’s preferences based on their current scenario. An example of this would be tracking what a user likes to watch when they’re at work/school compared to when they’re traveling or at home. This form of data collection relies on location tracking and/or time of day to monitor user behavior. 

 

From those three types of data, the algorithm derives certain features and sends that to the recommendation engine. These are correlation, user-scenario, trend and collaborative features. Correlation features represent the correlation between content and users, user-scenario features include location and time of day, trend features include global trends, themes, and trending topics in general, and collaborative features compare users with similar behaviors to categorize them. Using those features, the algorithm determines whether or not a video is suitable for a user’s ‘for you’ page. This behavior tracing is known as machine learning – the algorithm quite literally learns your habits on the app and uses that information to recommend you videos. This keeps users’ ‘for you’ page up-to-date and accurate, giving them endless content to stay hooked on. If you were constantly fed content relating to things you like, you’d probably find it hard to look away too, right?

 

Well, where’s the psychology in all this? A big consequence of the digital age is reduced attention span. You’ve probably heard of the term ‘iPad kid’ used to describe cranky kids with limited awareness of their surroundings, constantly needing a screen in front of their face. That’s the poster example of limited attention spans as a result of devices, and that’s exactly what using social media for a prolonged period of time does to you. If you’re using TikTok, you’re probably also using some other social media like Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, and chances are you’ve been using them for a while too. TikTok is designed to specifically target these people – with endless scrolling and short videos ranging from fifteen seconds to three minutes, it’s the perfect trap for users with short attention spans. You spend a couple seconds watching one video, and then it’s onto the next, and within one minute, you’ve already watched four videos. The design keeps people hooked, and it becomes very easy for people to spend hours scrolling. 

 

Apart from catering to limited attention spans, a large part of why so many people stay hooked on TikTok is due to gratification theory. Uses and gratification theory (UGT) explores the relationship between people and media, specifically how people use media to satisfy certain needs. These needs are categorized into one of the following: cognitive, affective, personal integrative, social integrative and tension free. Cognitive needs refer to the academic, intellectual or social knowledge and information that people use media for. For example, people watch the news to learn more about current events or use search engines to learn more about a specific topic. Affective needs, as the name suggests, refers to emotional needs. People will watch thriller or horror movies for a good scare or adrenaline rush, or maybe a sad romcom to get a little emotional after a long day. Personal integrative needs are essentially self-esteem needs; people are active on social media to reassure themselves, establish their online presence, and gain credibility. Often, people see more likes on a picture and a higher follower count as a self-esteem booster. Social media also lets you only post certain aspects of your life, so you’re free to build your own image on there. Next, we have social integrative needs, which refers to the desire to fit into society, whether it be friends or family. People will start a social media profile if all of their friends have one, or might start watching a new show solely because their crush said they liked it. Lastly, there are tension free needs, or one’s escapism from daily life. After a long day of work, you might just want to relax and watch a movie, or scroll through memes on Instagram, but either way, you’re using media as a form of escape to relieve yourself of stress.

 

Each user of TikTok has some combination of these needs – maybe they want to fit in since everyone they know is on it, they seek validation from certain videos they see, or just to scroll and laugh at funny videos after a long day. People are motivated by the fact that TikTok allows them to seek fame, expand their social network, and express themselves in many creative ways. Since it requires a shorter attention span than a platform like YouTube, many people have turned to it as their new social addiction. The algorithm works hand-in-hand with UGT to create a social media trap – one that the users keep running. They’ll like and watch videos, and the algorithm will just keep recommending more. This process is endless until the user decides to stop, which is harder than you think.

 

Citations

https://towardsdatascience.com/why-tiktok-made-its-user-so-obsessive-the-ai-algorithm-that-got-you-hooked-7895bb1ab423

https://www.communicationtheory.org/uses-and-gratification-theory/#:~:text=in%20Mass%20Communication%2C%20Psychology%2C%20Behavioral,when%20their%20needs%20are%20fulfilled. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8010681/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0735633117743917

Produced in 2014, Interstellar is an all-star classic space movie, a favorite for many space lovers! Director Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar movie is a science-fiction film that occurs in the future where a severe drought has resulted in dust-storms, destroyed most of Earth’s crops and caused humans to die of disease and famine. Cooper (played by Matthew McConaughey) and a team of NASA scientists are tasked with saving humanity by going through a wormhole that bends space and time, in hopes to find a habitable planet. This inter-galactic drama is full of suspense and mind-blowing scientific concepts. But how much of Interstellar depictions about space are true? Let’s play a little game of true or false to find out!

True or False?

Time moves more slowly in a black hole than it does for people on Earth.

ANSWER: TRUE 

A blackhole is essentially a place in space with an “infinite gravitational pull” that not even light can escape. The slowing of time is humungous near a black hole’s horizon, where the pull of gravity is humungous. Likewise, because the flow of time ceases at the horizon, the pull of gravity is infinite. Time still flows inside the horizon of a black hole; however, the flow of time is in a spatial direction – toward the singularity at the hole’s center (Thorne, 1986). If you were to reach down near a black hole’s horizon and stay there for a few days before returning home to Earth, you would find that millions of years have elapsed on Earth; while you only aged a few days, your family and friends are long gone (Thorne, 1986).

True or False?

If a wormhole were to appear in space, it would provide a short cut from one side of the universe to another.

ANSWER: TRUE (for the most part)

The theory of general relativity supports the possibility of wormholes and their ability to create space-time shortcuts to other universes (Tillman, 2022). Einstein’s theory of general relativity mathematically predicts the existence of wormholes, where there is a black hole at the mouth of each wormhole (Tillman, 2022). However, a wormhole is not created solely by when a dying star collapses to form a naturally occurring black hole. According to Princeton cosmologist J. Richard Gott, “It takes a massive object to generate a gravity field sufficient to fold space-time in half, and the one in the movie would have to be the equivalent of 100 million of our suns” (Kluger, 2014). In addition, ‘negative energy’ or an energetic state that is less than zero, is required to create the portal of a wormhole and keep it open (Kluger, 2014).

True or False?

You could survive the leap into a black hole.

ANSWER: FALSE

What happens when you enter a black hole? One word: Spaghettification. A black hole would stretch your body into a thin ribbon (ESO Supernova, 2022). Ultimately, you will get shredded by extreme gravity. In reality, Matthew McConaughey should have been spaghettified. Not in the yummy, savory way, though.

True or False?

Planets surrounding a black hole (like in Interstellar’s “Gargantua”) could be inhabitable.

ANSWER: FALSE

Planets that surround a black hole are highly unlikely to be able to harvest life because they are so close to the black hole, making them unstable (Phillips, 2020). An important factor in determining whether a planet is inhabitable or not is how its planetary system associated with it is like. For that to happen, a Sun-like star needs to be there. However, a planet near a black hole most likely had its “Sun” sucked into the black hole, thus the planets would deem uninhabitable.

 

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References:

ESO Supernova. (2022). What happens if you fall into a black hole? ESO Supernova Exhibition -. Retrieved February 17, 2022, from https://supernova.eso.org/exhibition/1205/#:~:text=The%20gravitational%20attraction%20of%20a,even%20light%20can%20escape%20it.&text=Spaghettification%3A%20A%20black%20hole%20would,stronger%20than%20on%20their%20head

Kluger, J. (2014, November 7). What ‘interstellar’ got right and wrong about science. Time. Retrieved February 17, 2022, from https://time.com/3572988/interstellar-science-fact-check/

Phillips, P. (2020, May 15). Times Interstellar Got Science All Wrong. Looper.com. Retrieved February 17, 2022, from https://www.looper.com/210013/times-interstellar-got-science-all-wrong/

Thorne, K. (1986). Black Holes. Black Holes The Most Luminous Objects in the Universe, But No Light! Retrieved February 17, 2022, from https://vdocuments.mx/black-holes-thorne.html

Tillman, N. T., & Harvey, A. (2022, January 13). What is wormhole theory? Space.com. Retrieved February 17, 2022, from https://www.space.com/20881-wormholes.html