When September comes, B.C. professor Steve DiPaola will roll in a digital vertical monitor that will unveil his new teaching “sidekick”: Kia.
She’s neither a teaching assistant nor staff member at Simon Fraser University (SFU) where DiPaola is an instructor and researcher. Described by DiPaola as a “world first” innovation in an academic setting, Kia is a fully expressive live 3D artificial intelligence collaborator, modelled to appear as a young woman who will help students engage in meaningful conversations and answer their questions.
DiPaola is the mastermind behind Kia, who will be part of his first-year course called “IAT 111: Artificial Intelligence Today & Tomorrow.” A new offer at SFU, the course is designed to teach students about AI-related ethical issues, the future of AI and the foundational knowledge required to adapt to an increasingly AI-reliant world. Kia is designed to work with students with real-time facial expressions, lip-synching and emotive body language.
The innovation is the first of its kind, says DiPaola, emphasizing that the AI sidekick cannot replace the crucial role of a human teacher, but will provide a glimpse of the future of human and AI collaboration in the classroom.
An upcoming course at Simon Fraser University is setting a precedent by providing students instruction by a live, 3D AI sidekick named Kia, says professor Steve DiPaola.
Simon Fraser UniversityKia will be projected on a monitor, and will be about the same size as DiPaola.
“What better way to talk about AI ethics than to bring AI into the classroom to teach alongside me? Performatively, I think it engages students about the real issues,” says DiPaola, who has researched AI at technological innovative hubs such as Silicon Valley and Stanford University.
DiPaola acknowledged the “worry” that some feel about AI replacing humans in the workplace, but confirmed that Kia will not be a teaching assistant, is not involved in the course design and won’t grade students’ work. Kia will instead be used as a teaching tool, a “conversational partner and a subject of our inquiry,” he said.
“It’s specifically there so when we want to wonder what an AI would do or think, we have it right there,” the professor said. “I think this will open it up for the students to be forthcoming and want to talk to it.”
Kia’s personality and look were designed by DiPaola, who he chose to look like a woman since the PhD students in his research lab are 75 per cent female.
About four weeks in the school year, after students get a better understanding of AI technology, DiPaola plans to change Kia’s appearance to “expose” the technology to students for “what it is and what it isn’t.”
“This is Wizard of Oz. There’s a human behind the curtain that’s created her,” he said. “So I will bring up the tool and change her to look different, with a different voice and a different personality. And then we’ll think about, ‘Well, why didn’t you do that to begin with? And what does it mean? I thought AI was the thing that you made, but now it could be anything?’”
Kia’s personality and look were designed by DiPaola, who he chose to look like a woman since the PhD students in his research lab are mostly female.
Simon Fraser UniversityKia has few roles in the classroom: she answers questions about AI and also debates complex topics and engaging in real-time discussions with students.
The university “recognizes the significance of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution and is working on an AI strategy to determine how we can responsibly leverage and utilize the use of AI for the greater good of education, research, and society,” said Dugan O’Neil, vice-president, Research and Innovation at SFU/ He noted DiPaola’s new course will give students “an innovative opportunity to explore the principles, potential and ethics of AI technologies by interacting with it directly in an academic setting.”
The course comes at a time when many people in several different work sectors worry about AI replacing human employees and it’s role in the spread of misinformation as it’s use rapidly grows.
Since the introduction of the chatbot, the education sector has been scrambling to figure out
In Ontario, several universities have started to adopt certain AI tools for enhanced learning including to help students summarize and for academic research but there is no knowledge yet of a similar course offered at universities in the province.
“There’s a lot to do on AI, and this just speeds up those 12 weeks we have, to really hit the ground running,” DiPaola said.
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