Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — A Northeastern University professor debuted an AI program last month to help students with their calculus, when she’s otherwise occupied.
The bot is named Ada, inspired by the famous mathematician Ada Lovelace, and it was created by math professor Abby Williams and two other contributors.
Ada was designed to be a “robo TA” for one of Northeastern’s calculus courses.
“The basic idea is that if you put in a question, it will give you step by step solutions,” Professor Williams said. “It’ll show you what to do at each step.”
Ada was trained exclusively from the course textbook. This way, students can ask the program questions regarding their coursework without the worry of the bot using incorrect information from the internet, something that has been a major point against many AI bots.
The professor also said that Ada can answer questions at any time of day, which is a major plus for her personally.
“I get a lot of panic emails between 11pm and 2am the nights before tests and quizzes,” the professor said. “Back when my little ones were younger, I would be awake and I would answer those emails, but now I’m asleep then.”
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She also said that the work in class was done with pen and paper, so the bot can only be used for learning and not cheating, another point that tends to be thrown at other AI programs.
“I had incredibly positive feedback from my students, they really liked being able to use it as a resource,” Professor Williams said. “I would like to expand it out to some of the other classes I teach.”
Ada is currently still in its pilot stage, but the positive reception from the students means the professor will be keeping it around.
The professor also mentioned that researchers at the school had already started working on a similar AI bot for physics classes that will be named Newton.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Chaiel Schaffel (@CSchaffelWBZ) reports.