Joe Rogan, the host of the popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, was shocked when he saw a video on Instagram that showed students in China undergoing ‘AI experiments.’ Dave Smith, a guest on the podcast Episode #1977, shared the video with him.
The footage depicted an AI-run school monitoring students’ concentration levels, tracking their locations, and counting how many times they viewed their phones.
The students wore headbands which enabled the school to monitor students’ attention levels, and the information was shared with parents and teachers. The AI robots analyzed students’ health and engagement, and the students wore chips to track their location. Surveillance cameras also monitored the students and their phone usage.
The video explains that the goal of this AI technology is used to “boost student grades” and “feed powerful algorithms” and that it wasn’t hard to gain the parent’s permission for this experiment.
After seeing the video, Rogan exclaimed, “Woah! They are gonna kill us! They are gonna dominate.”
Dave Smith suggested that the experiment could be happening in just one school in China and urged caution before jumping to conclusions. He asked, “Is this just like one random school is doing it this way in China, and this is like a little experiment?”
The implications of such an AI-driven system that can assess humans and access human data have raised many questions. What do you think about the situation? Do the risks outweigh the potential benefits?
Social Media Reactions
Many videos reposting the AI school experiment have gone viral on social media, and users have shared their disbelief in the comments. One user account known as @jre_specials shared the Joe Rogan reaction video and garnered more than 4.4 million views and 210,000 likes within two days of sharing.
“These kids will be competing with Western kids. They spend time studying, our kids spend time making dances for TikTok,” one user responded with 1,239 likes. “I don’t agree with this monitoring system at all— I’m just saying— the next generation of kids is going to be at such a disadvantage with the poor education, time spent on social media and helicopter parenting….”
“At least they are focusing on building knowledge,” another person with 3,304 likes stated.
A public school teacher in the United States with 1,121 likes commented. “Meanwhile, students regularly disregard classroom expectations to have their phones away during test administration. We are not a global power anymore, and our youth has no viable skills to compete in the job market as these students in other countries will possess.
This article, China’s AI Experiment to Monitor Students’ Activity, was produced and syndicated by TPR Teaching. Image: Shutterstock.
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