Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, has become what is believed to be the first university in the world to reduce face-to-face teaching by professors in favor of an artificial intelligence chatbot interacting directly with students, a move that has unsettled both students and staff. The university introduced the virtual assistant, named Virtual Partner, into the weekly teaching of two psychology courses, where it poses questions to students and helps them work through exercises.
One student, speaking anonymously to the British newspaper The Guardian, said that instead of a group discussion or a professor teaching the class, the activity is now carried out with a robot. The student said it felt like teaching the robot to take their professors' jobs.
University's response
Macquarie University maintains that the chatbot is a supplementary and optional tool, and that the core learning in the two courses takes place online, through reading texts, answering quizzes and watching videos. Students are assessed through research assignments and exams.
This semester, the two psychology courses are being taught entirely online, with no in-person teaching from a professor. The university said the two formats, in-person and online, will alternate in the next academic year.
Limited contact with professors
For now, the only way for students to reach a professor is by booking online sessions with tutors. One of the courses offers six such sessions a week for 400 students, while the other offers 10 sessions a week for 700 students.
Macquarie University is a public research university in Sydney, Australia, and one of the country's larger higher education institutions. Australia has positioned itself at the forefront of adopting artificial intelligence in higher education, a trend that has raised concern among students, academic staff and university employees more broadly.
Union warns of overload
Alison Barnes, president of Australia's National Tertiary Education Union, warned that university staff are already overloaded because of reductions in the workforce, and that trying to paper over those problems with a piecemeal rollout of AI could create even more damaging issues.
The debate over automation in education comes as artificial intelligence and robotics expand into other areas of daily life and industry.
Macquarie University has not set out further detail on when the alternating in-person and online model will begin next academic year.
