Artificial Intelligence in the Education Sector – Pearson’s Way

Artificial intelligence, sometimes called machine intelligence, is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans and other animals.

These days AI is being used in various fields and the education sector is no behind. Pearson, a company in San Francisco is aiming at transforming from publishing powerhouse to digital education platform. Milena Marinova is working on generating deep learning algorithms that can help educate the next generation of students. Pearson has accumulated “terrabytes” of data from the student homework as well as their text books that have been digitized. Marinova is presently working on generating software that provides feedback to students on their homework and class work just like a teacher would. Pearson has come up with an updated version of their Maths homework tool which not only tells that the answer is right or wrong but also provides feedback on the wrong steps involved in solving the question. Pearson has laid its focus on Mathematics precisely because Mathematics is comparatively easy to structure and digitize. For problems that are complex, human intervention is sought. Marinova strongly believes that although AI has added a lot to the education sector yet it doesn’t have the ability to replace the role of a teacher. The successful functioning of these algorithms and digitization is a big task that is standing in front of Pearson and Marinova. It is really a critical phase for the 174 years old company. The autumn financial quarter is one which brings a lot of revenue as the schools begin with their new session. Pearson is under great pressure of succeeding at this venture and earning the much needed revenue for itself.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2018/08/29/pearson-education-ai/#3210697d1833