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Welcome to the ‘Walled Garden.’ Is this Education’s Solution to Artificial Intelligence’s Pitfalls?

“If people are promising you a perfectly safe chatbot, you should probably be skeptical for the time being. But it is exciting. This is breaking some new ground.”
Michael Littman, professor of computer science at Brown University

The article, written by Alyson Klein, discusses ChatGPT’s ability to “spit out a coherent sounding paper on the causes of the Civil War,” and can still mess up the most basic facts about the Civil War. Because AI tools “pull from nearly every imaginable source on the internet, even if much of the content is not accurate or produced by a reputable source,” this does not create credibility to earn user trust.

Recently a “more focused version of the AI technology that some call ‘walled garden’ AI. This technology, similar to ChatGPT are innovative bots which “generate feedback based on a more limited database of information that their creators deem reliable.”

What is different about this specialized model for education is the content is curated that goes into them. This eliminates the risk of the “dark side of the internet” showing up. “ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), which recently merged with ASCD, is working to develop Stretch, a chatbot trained only on information that was created or blessed by the two professional development organizations. This walled-garden model—which is not yet available to the general public—can also cite its sources, giving users’ a digital trail to follow in gauging its accuracy, according to South.”

This type of curated AI used in schools could be amazing for Tutoring and can easily anticipate the needs of every student who enters the classroom. A carefully curated bot could “engage students from where they are very specifically.”

Khan Academy’s Khanmigo is an early example of engineering its bot to act like a tutor and personalize instruction for each student. While the tool is still in testing mode, the overall results, so far, have been positive.

To read the full article: https://www.edweek.org/technology/welcome-to-the-walled-garden-is-this-educations-solution-to-ais-pitfalls/2023/0