CURMUDGUCATION: Why Isn't AI More Widely Used?
Why Isn't AI More Widely Used?
That's the question that Wired asked last month, and it's important to consider because even as a truckload of ed tech folks are "predicting" (aka "marketing") a future in which ed tech is awash in shiny Artificial Intelligence features that read students minds and develop instantaneous perfectly personalized instructional materials. Why is it, do you supposed, that AI is being thrust at education even as private industry is slow to embrace it?
The article looks at a study of data from a 2018 US Census survey. What they found was that only 2.8% of companies had adopted any form of "machine learning," the magical AI process by which computers are supposed to be able to teach themselves. The big advanced tech winner was touchscreens, which are considerably more friendly than AI, and even those only clocked in at 5.9%, so I suspect that schools are ahead of the game on that one. Total share of companies using any kind of AI (which included voice recognition and self-driving vehicles) was a mere 8.9%.
Adoption was heavily tilted toward big companies, aka companies that can afford to buy shiny things that may or may not actually work, aka companies where the distance between those who buy the stuff and those who use the stuff is the greatest.
Another finding of the study is that, shockingly, that many previous "estimates" of AI use were seriously overstated. For instance, consulting giant McKinsey (a company that has steamy dreams CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Why Isn't AI More Widely Used?