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Pearson uses IBM artificial intelligence system for virtual teaching assistants. Chris Havergal writes
Students, meet your new class assistant, Dr Watson. But there's one thing that you should know: Dr Watson is a robot.
In the past, undergraduates on the receiving end of such an introduction might rightly doubt whether they could learn much from a close relative of Apple's Siri, or worse, of Microsoft's Clippy. It might equally have been anathema to academics, fearful that one day they might be replaced by artificial intelligence.
But the journey towards a virtual tutor that can help lecturers to do their job appears to have taken a significant step forward with Pearson's announcement that it will use IBM's Watson computer system as a teaching assistant on its learning resources.
Watson is...