Education has long been considered the key to unlocking social mobility and economic prosperity. However, inequality in access to education remains a pervasive issue, particularly for marginalised communities. An area I have long held an interest in and offered early-stage investment to is companies utilising Artificial intelligence (AI). Thanks to the recent boom of tools such as Chat GPT and Google’s Bard, AI is now emerging or at least being recognised as a potential solution to bridge these inequalities by providing a personalised and equitable education to all students, regardless of their background or circumstances.
While I have not yet invested in one specific company utilising AI for educational purposes, one observation I have noted through various conversations with industry leaders is how AI can help address educational inequalities. The tech now has the ability to provide adaptive and personalised learning experiences, which can be tailored to the needs of each student. By leveraging data on students’ learning styles, abilities, and needs, AI-powered adaptive learning systems can help students who struggle with traditional teaching methods or require extra support to succeed. For example, an AI-powered language learning system can adjust its curriculum to a student’s individual language skills and learning pace – this ultimately provides them with a more effective and personalised learning experience.
Building on this, AI in education now can provide greater access to education for students facing physical or geographical barriers. Students living in rural or remote areas often lack access to quality educational resources or teachers, but with AI there is now the potential to access high-quality education through virtual learning platforms. AI-powered translation tools can also help students who speak different languages overcome hurdles in the classroom, further improving access. Only recently, Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai told CBS’s primetime news show 60 Minutes, that Google’s AI has taught itself the Bengali language, even though it was not asked to do so. “We discovered that with very few amounts of prompting in Bengali, it can now translate all of Bengali,” Sundar continues by saying his top researchers don’t really know how it managed the feat, adding that “all of us in the field” refer to the whole system as a “black box” – something “you don’t fully understand”. This is a slightly worrying yet fascinating revelation which highlights AI’s potential amongst a whole host of other things for language learning.
Despite its potential, it is crucial to recognize that AI is not a panacea for educational inequality. Biases can be introduced into AI algorithms if the data used to train them is not diverse and representative, which can and will perpetuate existing inequalities if this is the case.
To ensure that AI is developed and implemented ethically and equitably, it is essential to address bias in data, involve diverse stakeholders in the development and deployment of AI systems, and regularly monitor and evaluate the impact of AI on educational outcomes. These are points that are continually reiterated in conversations I have had with leading minds in the space and are not mutually exclusive to education, this should be the case with all development and deployment of AI technology.
AI has the potential to be a powerful tool in addressing educational inequalities by providing personalised and fair education to all students. While there are challenges to ensuring that AI is advanced and implemented in a right and unbiased manner, the potential benefits of AI in education cannot be ignored. As we work towards creating a more equitable and just society, we must leverage the power of AI to ensure that all students have access to quality education, regardless of their background or circumstances.
Bruno Michieli
Bruno Michieli is the Founding Partner of CS Capital, an alternative investment firm, based in Hong Kong, focused on providing solution-driven capital to lower-middle market enterprises and emerging companies.