Malayasia's Raffles University is planning to launch a degree programme taught and assessed entirely by artificial intelligence. The degree programme was initiated after the dean of the Faculty of AI and Robotics of the varsity, Professor Sasa Arsovski, developed a platform called MyAi Teaching Assistant. Considering the incoming wave of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the past couple of years, the varsity decided to use the MyAi Teaching Assistant platform to launch the world's first AI-taught programme. Claiming that the "Ai Lecturer is capable of independent teaching", the varsity added that this platform will allow students to interact with created AI instructor clones, allowing them to log in and engage in an engaging learning journey. The AI clone encourages active participation and even allows students to pause lessons for clarification. To make this a success, the experts will take the experience and the expertise of the lecturers, which will then be summarised in a PowerPoint presentation, on the basis of which a lesson will be designed and presented to students through artificial intelligence. Additionally, artificial intelligence will also be used to customise learning experiences for each student, assessing their understanding and creating personalised homework assignments based on conversation history between students and the same AI clone. The same system will be used to evaluate students' homework answers, eliminating the need for manual grading and allowing educators to focus on quality student interaction. The platform offers comprehensive data analytics for each student, enabling educators to improve teaching strategies and tailor their approach to each student's unique needs. When asked if having an AI tutor will take away the human touch that research proves helps students learn better, the varsity is confident that such a situation will not arise. "Our Ai Lecturer uses a human avatar to simulate human interaction. They are all a real human academic overseeing and monitoring the interactions," Associate Professor, Greg Pritchard, told indianexpress.com. Since Prof Arsovski has already used this artificial intelligence platform to cover his classes when he was away, the varsity plans to expand this facility to most degree areas. However, the privately owned university is sure that this will not bring a decline in the hiring of professors. "We are hiring more digital support staff, but we do not expect any reduction in physical academic staff. Students who can currently afford a physical learning experience will still come to the universities. What the AI delivered degree does is open up the life-changing possibilities of gaining a degree to those who currently can’t afford a physical university," Prof Pritchard explained. The programme is likely to go live from October, but the varsity is set to apply for Malaysian Qualifications Agency (accreditation) next month. The degree will be online ODL (Open Distance Learning), and the programme fee is yet to be finalised but is expected to be around $2000.
