Now we’ve been hearing a lot about AI recently.
So when it was recently reported that a school had just appointed an AI bot as their new principal head teacher, and someone seems to have successfully used an AI bot to field all the questions being thrown at them during a job interview, it does make you wonder where on earth are we heading.
Yes I kid you not, it’s all true.
Cottesmore School, a previous winner of prep school of the year, and based in West Sussex has just appointed an AI bot as principal headteacher.
Annual fees for the school are in the region of £32,000, so it’s not cheap!
The new principal is Abigail Bailey, who’s remit is to assist the current real headteacher, Tom Rogerson, who insists that her input will be invaluable in providing advice on how best to support staff members, writing school policies and helping pupils suffering from ADHC.
Mr Rogerson says that having someone like Abigail working alongside him will prove to be a very calming influence, and that it’s good to know that someone so unbelievably well trained is there to help him make the right decisions.
“It doesn’t mean you don’t ever also seek counsel from humans. Of course you do. It’s just very calming and reassuring knowing that you don’t have to call anybody up, bother someone, you don’t have to wait around for an answer”, said Mr Rogerson.
Abigail works in a similar way to the popular ChatGPT AI service, which can answer questions when asked or produce writing based on various prompts and has been specially designed to ‘have a wealth of knowledge in machine learning’, and is also able to quickly analyse ‘vast amounts of data’.
Mr Rogerson added that, “Being a school leader, a headmaster, is a very lonely job. Of course we have head teacher’s groups… but just having somebody or something on tap that can help you in this lonely place is very reassuring.”
It seems however that there are, as yet, no plans to replace any other teachers on the staff, but merely augmenting their capabilities to ensuring students receive the best education possible.
Mind you news has also just been released of a woman who used Artificial Intelligence to help her answer questions for a job interview.
The app generated answers in real time, to the questions posed in the interview, and presented them to the candidate via a mobile phone leaning up against screen through which the interview was being conducted.
Assuming you were successful, I just wonder what would happen when you were asked to do something for real?
We also reported news of disruption that occurred in a town in Tennessee, which it turned out had been inadvertently caused by someone far less technologically inspired.
It all started when police officers were alerted by reports of, what appeared to be a bomb, strapped to the side of a car.
Parked outside the First Watch restaurant on Medical Centre Parkway, it was noticed that the car appeared to have wires connected to a suction cup on the inside door handle.
Whilst Federal, state, and local officers responded to the “threat”, all businesses in the shopping plaza were evacuated for nearly two hours as a precaution and local schools were placed on lockdown while the investigation was ongoing.
After some time a police department supervisor managed to reach the car owner by phone, who was standing with the other evacuees across the street the entire time, unaware that it was his car that promoted the bomb threat calls!
It was eventually discovered that the “bomb’ was in reality a makeshift bumper designed to prevent the car from being scratched or dented by other vehicles.
Oh dear!
All being well I hope to have your company again next week,
Scott
