AI needs to encourage students to think and not give away too much: Coursera's Jeff Maggioncalda

In conversation with Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO, Coursera Moderated by Chandra R Srikanth, Moneycontrol

Companies should ensure that their artificial intelligence (AI) models are not giving away too many answers and are encouraging students to continue to think, according to Jeff Maggioncalda, the chief executive officer of global upskilling company Coursera.

"It will be a tricky balancing act. We're all trying to see how to support a learner without letting them cheat. A teacher has to be helpful, but not too helpful," he said, while talking to the tech and startups editor Chandra Srikanth, at the Moneycontrol Startup Conclave on July 7.

Maggioncalda shared the example of the AI used by edtech company Khan Academy in schools in New Jersey, USA. He said that it had to scale back the ability of the AI because the model was ‘too good.’

During the fireside chat, Maggioncalda discussed the capabilities of AI in education and if it is a boon or bane for education.

Last month, the company launched its own AI tutor based on GPT 3.5, called the Coursera Coach which works on 5,000 courses on the platform. “We are using a large language model. We are constructing prompts tutored to give you personal answers. There is a personal tutor for every course on Coursera,” he said.

Maggioncalda explains that this helps in incorporating the domain expertise and the course material to come from the university and the professor. He added that about 25 percent of all Coursera users are now able to access this AI tutor.

Speaking on the future of edtech, Maggioncalda said that there is a strong adoption of online learning even in the physical classroom. “We will never go back to a world where there are printed textbooks and all teachers and students are sitting in the same class. It's a hybrid world,” he added.

Maggioncalda believes that with education the culture of work is also changing due to AI, and hence even employers are looking for agile people who can keep up with this kind of change.

The Coursera chief revealed that he is currently taking three courses to stay up to date - a Generative AI course on Coursera from Andrew Ng, Google data analytics certificate and a creative thinking course from Imperial College of London.