bots

A survey of 3,000 executives reveals how businesses succeed with AI — from hbr.org by Jacques Bughin, Brian McCarthy, Michael Chui

Excerpt:

The buzz over artificial intelligence (AI) has grown loud enough to penetrate the C-suites of organizations around the world, and for good reason. Investment in AI is growing and is increasingly coming from organizations outside the tech space. And AI success stories are becoming more numerous and diverse, from Amazon reaping operational efficiencies using its AI-powered Kiva warehouse robots, to GE keeping its industrial equipment running by leveraging AI for predictive maintenance.

While it’s clear that CEOs need to consider AI’s business implications, the technology’s nascence in business settings makes it less clear how to profitably employ it. Through a study of AI that included a survey of 3,073 executives and 160 case studies across 14 sectors and 10 countries, and through a separate digital research program, we have identified 10 key insights CEOs need to know to embark on a successful AI journey.

Make no mistake: The next digital frontier is here, and it’s AI. While some firms are still reeling from previous digital disruptions, a new one is taking shape. But it’s early days. There’s still time to make AI a competitive advantage.

IBM and MIT to Pursue Joint Research in Artificial Intelligence, Establish New MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab — from by
IBM plans to make a 10-Year, $240 Million Investment in new lab with MIT to advance AI hardware and software and algorithms

Excerpt:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — IBM and MIT today announced that IBM plans to make a 10-year, $240 million investment to create the MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab in partnership with MIT. The lab will carry out fundamental artificial intelligence (AI) research and seek to propel scientific breakthroughs that unlock the potential of AI. The collaboration aims to advance AI hardware, software and algorithms related to deep learning and other areas, increase AI’s impact on industries, such as health care and cybersecurity, and explore the economic and ethical implications of AI on society. IBM’s $240 million investment in the lab will support research by IBM and MIT scientists.

The new lab will be one of the largest long-term university-industry AI collaborations to date, mobilizing the talent of more than 100 AI scientists, professors, and students to pursue joint research…

Top Trends in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017 — from gartner.com by Kasey Panetta
Enterprises should explain the business potential of blockchain, artificial intelligence and augmented reality.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

…emerging technologies such as machine learning, blockchain, drones (commercial UAVs), software-defined security and brain-computer interfaces have moved significantly along the Hype Cycle since 2016.
…

The Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017 focuses on three emerging technology mega-trends: Artificial intelligence (AI) everywhere, transparently immersive experiences and digital platforms. Enterprise architects and technology innovation leaders should explore and ideate these three mega-trends to understand the future impacts to their business.

“Organizations will continue to be faced with rapidly accelerating technology innovation that will profoundly impact the way they deal with their workforces, customers and partners,” says Mike J. Walker, research director. “Our 2017 Hype Cycle reveals three distinct technology trends that profoundly create new experiences with unrivaled intelligence, and offer platforms that propel organizations to connect with new business ecosystems in order to become competitive over the next five to 10 years.”

10 examples of how brands are using chatbots to delight customers [Kim]

On 08/22/2017, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, career development, change, communications, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, emerging technologies, marketing/social marketing, MBA, platforms, programming, tools, workplace, by Daniel Christian

10 examples of how brands are using chatbots to delight customers — from medium.com by Larry Kim

Excerpt:

Businesses and brands are using chatbots in lots of exciting ways.

You can order food, schedule flights, and get recommendations for pretty much anything you can think of.

We’re still in the early days, but the latest chatbot statistics all say the same thing: adoption is growing.

Whether you like it or not, chatbots and virtual assistants are the future of marketing and customer support.

So which brands are already making the most of chatbots to delight their customers?

Here are 10 examples.

Artificial intelligence will transform universities. Here’s how. — from weforum.org by Mark Dodgson & David Gann

Excerpt:

The most innovative AI breakthroughs, and the companies that promote them – such as DeepMind, Magic Pony, Aysadi, Wolfram Alpha and Improbable – have their origins in universities. Now AI will transform universities.

We believe AI is a new scientific infrastructure for research and learning that universities will need to embrace and lead, otherwise they will become increasingly irrelevant and eventually redundant.

Through their own brilliant discoveries, universities have sown the seeds of their own disruption. How they respond to this AI revolution will profoundly reshape science, innovation, education – and society itself.
…
As AI gets more powerful, it will not only combine knowledge and data as instructed, but will search for combinations autonomously. It can also assist collaboration between universities and external parties, such as between medical research and clinical practice in the health sector.

The implications of AI for university research extend beyond science and technology.
…
When it comes to AI in teaching and learning, many of the more routine academic tasks (and least rewarding for lecturers), such as grading assignments, can be automated. Chatbots, intelligent agents using natural language, are being developed by universities such as the Technical University of Berlin; these will answer questions from students to help plan their course of studies.

Virtual assistants can tutor and guide more personalized learning. As part of its Open Learning Initiative (OLI), Carnegie Mellon University has been working on AI-based cognitive tutors for a number of years. It found that its OLI statistics course, run with minimal instructor contact, resulted in comparable learning outcomes for students with fewer hours of study. In one course at the Georgia Institute of Technology, students could not tell the difference between feedback from a human being and a bot.

Also see:

Digital audio assistants in teaching and learning — from blog.blackboard.com by Szymon Machajewski

Excerpts:

I built an Amazon Alexa skill called Introduction to Computing Flashcards. In using the skill, or Amazon Alexa app, students are able to listen to Alexa and then answer questions. Alexa helps students prepare for an exam by speaking definitions and then waiting for their identification. In addition to quizzing the student, Alexa is also keeping track of the correct answers. If a student answers five questions correctly, Alexa shares a game code, which is worth class experience points in the course gamification My Game app.

…

Certainly, exam preparation apps are one way to use digital assistants in education. As development and publishing of Amazon Alexa skills becomes easier, faculty will be able to produce such skills just as easily as they now create PowerPoints. Given the basic code available through Amazon tutorials, it takes 20 minutes to create a new exam preparation app. Basic voice experience Amazon Alexa skills can take as much as five minutes to complete.

Universities can publish their campus news through the Alexa Flash Briefing. This type of a skill can publish news, success stories, and other events associated with the campus.

…

If you are a faculty member, how can you develop your first Amazon Alexa skill? You can use any of the tutorials already available. You can also participate in an Amazon Alexa classroom training provided by Alexa Dev Days. It is possible that schools or maker spaces near you offer in-person developer sessions. You can use meetup.com to track these opportunities.

Chatbot “Bobbot” has driven 1000’s of potential leads, 10% increase in converting visitors to students

On 08/08/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business side of he, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, emerging technologies, experimentation, Facebook / Meta Platforms, higher education, IBM, Natural Language Processing (NLP), student-related, tools, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Codify Academy Taps IBM Cloud with Watson to Design Cognitive Chatbot — from finance.yahoo.com
Chatbot “Bobbot” has driven thousands of potential leads, 10 percent increase in converting visitors to students

Excerpt:

ARMONK, N.Y., Aug. 4, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Codify Academy, a San Francisco-based developer education startup, tapped into IBM Cloud’s cognitive services to create an interactive cognitive chatbot, Bobbot, that is improving student experiences and increasing enrollment.

Using the IBM Watson Conversation Service, Bobbot fields questions from prospective and current students in natural language via the company’s website. Since implementing the chatbot, Codify Academy has engaged thousands of potential leads through live conversation between the bot and site visitors, leading to a 10 percent increase in converting these visitors into students.

Bobbot can answer more than 200 common questions about enrollment, course and program details, tuition, and prerequisites, in turn enabling Codify Academy staff to focus on deeper, more meaningful exchanges.

Also see:

Chatbots — The Beginners Guide — from chatbotsmagazine.com

Excerpt:

If you search for chatbots on Google, you’ll probably come across hundreds of pages starting from what is a chatbot to how to build one. This is because we’re in 2017, the year of the chatbots revolution.

I’ve been introduced to many people who are new to this space, and who are very interested and motivated in entering it, rather they’re software developers, entrepreneurs, or just tech hobbyists. Entering this space for the first time, has become overwhelming in just a few months, particularly after Facebook announced the release of the messenger API at F8 developer conference. Due to this matter, I’ve decided to simplify the basic steps of entering this fascinating world.

155 chatbots in this brand new landscape. Where does your bot fit? [Chan]

On 08/03/2017, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, corporate / business world, marketing/social marketing, tools, trends, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

155 chatbots in this brand new landscape. Where does your bot fit? — from venturebeat.com by Carylyne Chan

Excerpt:

Since we started building bots at KeyReply more than two years ago, the industry has seen massive interest and change. This makes it hard for companies and customers to figure out what’s really happening — so we hope to throw some light on this industry by creating a landscape of chatbot-related businesses. There’s no way to put everyone into this landscape, so we have selected examples that give readers an overview of the industry, such as notable or dominant providers and tools widely used to develop bots.

To put everything into a coherent structure, we arranged companies along the axes according to the functions of their bots and how they built them.

On the horizontal axis, the “marketing” function refers to a bot’s ability to drive exposure, reach, and interaction with the brand or product for potential and current customers. The “support” function refers to a bot’s ability to assist current customers with problems and to resolve those problems for them.

On the vertical axis, “managed” refers to companies outsourcing the development of bots to external vendors, whereas “self-serve” refers to them building their bots in-house or with an off-the-shelf tool.

2017 Ed Tech Trends: The Halfway Point [Aldridge, Christian, Kelly, Powell, & Ventimiglia]

On 07/31/2017, in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), bots, change, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, maker movement, robotics, society, student-related, tools, trends, universities, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

2017 Ed Tech Trends: The Halfway Point — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly
Four higher ed IT leaders weigh in on the current state of education technology and what’s ahead.

This article includes some perspectives shared from the following 4 IT leaders:

Susan Aldridge, Senior Vice President for Online Learning, Drexel University (PA); President, Drexel University Online
Daniel Christian, Adjunct Faculty Member, Calvin College
Marci Powell, CEO/President, Marci Powell & Associates; Chair Emerita and Past President, United States Distance Learning Association
Phil Ventimiglia, Chief Innovation Officer, Georgia State University

Also see:

Higher ed forges ahead on immersive tech integration – from educationdive.com by Pat Donachie

From DSC:
Reviewing the article below made me think of 2 potential additions to the Learning & Development Groups/Departments out there:

Help people build their own learning ecosystems
Design, develop, and implement workbots for self-service

Chatbots Poised to Revolutionize HR — from by Pratibha Nanduri

Excerpt:

Self-service is becoming an increasingly popular trend where people want to perform their tasks without needing help or input from anyone else. The increasing popularity of this trend is mainly attributed to the increasing use of computers and mobile devices to electronically manage all kinds of tasks.

As employee tolerance for downtime reduces and preferences for mobility increases, the bureaucracy which exists in managing everyday HR related tasks in the workplace will also have to be replaced. A large number of companies have still not automated even their basic HR services such as handling inquiries about holidays and leaves. Employees in such organizations still have to send their query and then wait for HR to respond.

As the number of employees goes up in an organization, the time taken by HR managers to respond to mundane admin tasks also increases. This leaves very little time for the HR manager to focus on strategic HR initiatives.

Chatbots that are powered by AI and machine learning are increasingly being used to automate mundane and repetitive tasks. They can also be leveraged in HR to simulate intelligent SMS-based conversations between employees and HR team members to automate basic HR tasks.

Trying to develop a general AI illustrates that some serious glory & honor is due (again)

On 07/22/2017, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, computer science, Daniel S. Christian, faith, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), programming, by Daniel Christian

Google’s AI Guru Says That Great Artificial Intelligence Must Build on Neuroscience — from technologyreview.com by Jamie Condliffe
Inquisitiveness and imagination will be hard to create any other way.

Excerpt:

Demis Hassabis knows a thing or two about artificial intelligence: he founded the London-based AI startup DeepMind, which was purchased by Google for $650 million back in 2014. Since then, his company has wiped the floor with humans at the complex game of Go and begun making steps towards crafting more general AIs.

But now he’s come out and said that be believes the only way for artificial intelligence to realize its true potential is with a dose of inspiration from human intellect.

Currently, most AI systems are based on layers of mathematics that are only loosely inspired by the way the human brain works. But different types of machine learning, such as speech recognition or identifying objects in an image, require different mathematical structures, and the resulting algorithms are only able to perform very specific tasks.

Building AI that can perform general tasks, rather than niche ones, is a long-held desire in the world of machine learning. But the truth is that expanding those specialized algorithms to something more versatile remains an incredibly difficult problem, in part because human traits like inquisitiveness, imagination, and memory don’t exist or are only in their infancy in the world of AI.

First, they say, better understanding of how the brain works will allow us to create new structures and algorithms for electronic intelligence.

From DSC:
Glory to God! I find it very interesting to see how people and organizations — via very significant costs/investments — keep trying to mimic the most amazing thing — the human mind. Turns out, that’s not so easy:

But the truth is that expanding those specialized algorithms to something more versatile remains an incredibly difficult problem…

Therefore, some scripture comes to my own mind here:

Psalm 139:14 New International Version (NIV)

¹⁴I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

Job 12:13 (NIV)

¹³“To God belong wisdom and power;
counsel and understanding are his.

Psalm 104:24 (NIV)

²⁴How many are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

Revelation 4:11 (NIV)

¹¹“You are worthy, our Lord and God,
    to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
    and by your will they were created
    and have their being.”

Yes, the LORD designed the human mind by His unfathomable and deep wisdom and understanding.

Glory to God!

Thanks be to God!

The Business of Artificial Intelligence — from hbr.org by Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

The most important general-purpose technology of our era is artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning (ML) — that is, the machine’s ability to keep improving its performance without humans having to explain exactly how to accomplish all the tasks it’s given. Within just the past few years machine learning has become far more effective and widely available. We can now build systems that learn how to perform tasks on their own.

Why is this such a big deal? Two reasons. First, we humans know more than we can tell: We can’t explain exactly how we’re able to do a lot of things — from recognizing a face to making a smart move in the ancient Asian strategy game of Go. Prior to ML, this inability to articulate our own knowledge meant that we couldn’t automate many tasks. Now we can.

Second, ML systems are often excellent learners. They can achieve superhuman performance in a wide range of activities, including detecting fraud and diagnosing disease. Excellent digital learners are being deployed across the economy, and their impact will be profound.

In the sphere of business, AI is poised have a transformational impact, on the scale of earlier general-purpose technologies. Although it is already in use in thousands of companies around the world, most big opportunities have not yet been tapped. The effects of AI will be magnified in the coming decade, as manufacturing, retailing, transportation, finance, health care, law, advertising, insurance, entertainment, education, and virtually every other industry transform their core processes and business models to take advantage of machine learning. The bottleneck now is in management, implementation, and business imagination.

…

The machine learns from examples, rather than being explicitly programmed for a particular outcome.

Let’s start by exploring what AI is already doing and how quickly it is improving. The biggest advances have been in two broad areas: perception and cognition. …For instance, Aptonomy and Sanbot, makers respectively of drones and robots, are using improved vision systems to automate much of the work of security guards.

Machine learning is driving changes at three levels: tasks and occupations, business processes, and business models.

You may have noticed that Facebook and other apps now recognize many of your friends’ faces in posted photos and prompt you to tag them with their names.

Video: 4 FAQs about Watson as tutor [Nitta]

On 07/15/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, colleges, community colleges, computer science, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, Natural Language Processing (NLP), personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, programming, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Video: 4 FAQs about Watson as tutor — from er.educause.edu by Satya Nitta

Excerpt:

How is IBM using Watson’s intelligent tutoring system? So we are attempting to mimic the best practices of human tutoring. The gold standard will always remain one on one human to human tutoring. The whole idea here is an intelligent tutoring system as a computing system that works autonomously with learners, so there is no human intervention. It’s basically pretending to be the teacher itself and it’s working with the learner. What we’re attempting to do is we’re attempting to basically put conversational systems, systems that understand human conversation and dialogue, and we’re trying to build a system that, in a very natural way, interacts with people through conversation. The system basically has the ability to ask questions, to answer questions, to know who you are and where you are in your learning journey, what you’re struggling with, what you’re strong on and it will personalize its pedagogy to you.

…

There’s a natural language understanding system and a machine learning system that’s trying to figure out where you are in your learning journey and what the appropriate intervention is for you. The natural language system enables this interaction that’s very rich and conversation-based, where you can basically have a human-like conversation with it and, to a large extent, it will try to understand and to retrieve the right things for you. Again the most important thing is that we will set the expectations appropriately and we have appropriate exit criteria for when the system doesn’t actually understand what you’re trying to do.

Chatbot lawyer, which contested £7.2M in parking tickets, now offers legal help for 1,000+ topics [Sebastian Anthony]

On 07/14/2017, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assistive technologies, bots, change, communications, computer science, disruption, game-changing environment, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, legislatures / government / legal, programming, robotics, society, UK, United States, by Daniel Christian

Chatbot lawyer, which contested £7.2M in parking tickets, now offers legal help for 1,000+ topics — from arstechnica.co.uk by Sebastian Anthony
DoNotPay has expanded to cover the UK and all 50 US states. Free legal help for everyone!

Excerpt:

In total, DoNotPay now has over 1,000 separate chatbots that generate formal-sounding documents for a range of basic legal issues, such as seeking remuneration for a delayed flight or train, reporting discrimination, or asking for maternity leave. If you divide that by 51 (US and UK) you get a rough idea of how many different topics are covered. Each bot had to be hand-crafted by the British creator Joshua Browder, with the assistance of part-time and volunteer lawyers to ensure that the the documents are actually fit for purpose.

British student’s free robot lawyer can fight speeding tickets and rogue landlords — from telegraph.co.uk by Cara McGoogan

Excerpt:

A free “robot lawyer” that has overturned thousands of parking tickets in the UK can now fight rogue landlords, speeding tickets and harassment at work.

Joshua Browder, the 20-year-old British student who created the aide, has upgraded the robot’s abilities so it can fight legal disputes in 1,000 different areas. These include fighting landlords over security deposits and house repairs, and helping people report fraud to their credit card agency.
…
To get robot advice, users type their problem into the DoNotPay site and it directs them to a chat bot that can solve their particular legal issue. It can draft letters and offer advice on problems from credit card fraud to airline compensation.

Free robot lawyer helps low-income people tackle more than 1,000 legal issues — from mashable.com by Katie Dupere

Excerpt:

Shady businesses, you’re on notice. This robot lawyer is coming after you if you play dirty.

Noted legal aid chatbot DoNotPay just announced a massive expansion, which will help users tackle issues in 1,000 legal areas entirely for free. The new features, which launched on Wednesday, cover consumer and workplace rights, and will be available in all 50 states and the UK.

While the bot will still help drivers contest parking tickets and refugees apply for asylum, the service will now also help those who want to report harassment in the workplace or who simply want a refund on a busted toaster.

From DSC:
Whereas this type of bot is meant for external communications/assistance, we should also watch for Work Bots within an organization — dishing up real-time answers to questions that employees have about a variety of topics. I think that’s the next generation of technical communications, technical/help desk support, as well as training and development groups (at least some of the staff in those departments will likely be building these types of bots).

Addendum on 7/15/17:

LawGeex: Contract Review Automation

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The LawGeex Contract Review Automation enables anyone in your business to easily submit and receive approvals on contracts without waiting for the legal team. Our A.I. technology reads, reviews and understands your contracts, approving those that meet your legal team’s pre-defined criteria, and escalating those that don’t. Legal can maintain control and mitigate risk while giving other departments the freedom they need to get business moving.

In today’s tech world, often it’s a “winner takes all” situation

On 06/27/2017, in Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), Australia, Blockchain, bots, Canada, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communications, computer science, corporate / business world, data related items, disruption, education, education technology, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, Europe, Facebook / Meta Platforms, global / globalization, Google, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, India, innovation, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, music, Natural Language Processing (NLP), platforms, reinvent, robotics, social media, staying relevant, surviving, technology (general), trends, United States, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Winner takes all — from by Michael Moe, Luben Pampoulov, Li Jiang, Nick Franco, & Suzee Han

We did a lot of things that seemed crazy at the time. Many of those crazy things now have over a billion users, like Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Android.

— Larry Page, CEO, Alphabet

Excerpt:

An alphabet is a collection of letters that represent language. Alphabet, accordingly, is a collection of companies that represent the many bets Larry Page is making to ensure his platform is built to not only survive, but to thrive in a future defined by accelerating digital disruption. It’s an “Alpha” bet on a diversified platform of assets.

If you look closely, the world’s top technology companies are making similar bets.

Technology in general and the Internet in particular is all about a disproportionate gains to the leader in a category. Accordingly, as technology leaders like Facebook, Alphabet, and Amazon survey the competitive landscape, they have increasingly aimed to develop and acquire emerging technology capabilities across a broad range of complementary categories.

Should technical communicators, trainers, & help desk personnel get trained on developing “workbots?”

On 06/23/2017, in bots, business, communications, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, experimentation, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, tools, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
After reading the item below, I wondered:

Should technical communicators, trainers, and help desk personnel get trained on how to design and develop “workbots?”

Forget chatbots — you should create a workbot instead — from venturebeat.com by Oren Ariel; with thanks to Thomas Frey for his tweet on this

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

But what about employee-to-company interaction through bots? Chatbots designed for the work environment, or workbots, could become the next step function in work productivity.
…
Workbots could be the cure for what’s often called “app fatigue.”

They work within the corporate messenger environment (such as Jabber, Skype for Business, Slack, and others) and respond to commands and questions in natural language, whether typed or dictated. They have access to all the corporate information needed to get the job done and can perform complex tasks across multiple systems. The workbot knows what tasks are executed in which back-end system, so the user doesn’t have to know. Because bots rely on natural language processing (NLP) — the ability of humans to interact with computers using free-form language — workbots can help an employee get to the starting point quickly and without any training, in the same way a search engine would, and then help guide the user through the task in a step-by-step fashion.

Chat is no longer just about communication, it’s about bringing the user information.

What a future, powerful, global learning platform will look & act like [Christian]

On 06/22/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, accessibility / UDL, adult learning, Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, assistive technologies, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, blogs / blogging / vlogging, bots, Bring your own device (BYOD), business side of he, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital audio, digital learning, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, languages and translation, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, lifelong learning, love of learning, machine-to-machine communications, microlearning, Microsoft, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Near Field Communication (NFC), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, robotics, RSS, second screen apps, simulations, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, tablets, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Learning from the Living [Class] Room:
A vision for a global, powerful, next generation learning platform

By Daniel Christian

NOTE: Having recently lost my Senior Instructional Designer position due to a staff reduction program, I am looking to help build such a platform as this. So if you are working on such a platform or know of someone who is, please let me know: danielchristian55@gmail.com.

I want to help people reinvent themselves quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively — while providing more choice, more control to lifelong learners. This will become critically important as artificial intelligence, robotics, algorithms, and automation continue to impact the workplace.

Learning from the Living [Class] Room:
A global, powerful, next generation learning platform

What does the vision entail?

A new, global, collaborative learning platform that offers more choice, more control to learners of all ages – 24×7 – and could become the organization that futurist Thomas Frey discusses here with Business Insider:

“I’ve been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven’t heard of yet,” Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider.

A learner-centered platform that is enabled by – and reliant upon – human beings but is backed up by a powerful suite of technologies that work together in order to help people reinvent themselves quickly, conveniently, and extremely cost-effectively
An AI-backed system of analyzing employment trends and opportunities will highlight those courses and “streams of content” that will help someone obtain the most in-demand skills
A system that tracks learning and, via Blockchain-based technologies, feeds all completed learning modules/courses into learners’ web-based learner profiles
A learning platform that provides customized, personalized recommendation lists – based upon the learner’s goals
A platform that delivers customized, personalized learning within a self-directed course (meant for those content creators who want to deliver more sophisticated courses/modules while moving people through the relevant Zones of Proximal Development)
Notifications and/or inspirational quotes will be available upon request to help provide motivation, encouragement, and accountability – helping learners establish habits of continual, lifelong-based learning
(Potentially) An online-based marketplace, matching learners with teachers, professors, and other such Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
(Potentially) Direct access to popular job search sites
(Potentially) Direct access to resources that describe what other companies do/provide and descriptions of any particular company’s culture (as described by current and former employees and freelancers)

Further details:
While basic courses will be accessible via mobile devices, the optimal learning experience will leverage two or more displays/devices. So while smaller smartphones, laptops, and/or desktop workstations will be used to communicate synchronously or asynchronously with other learners, the larger displays will deliver an excellent learning environment for times when there is:

A Subject Matter Expert (SME) giving a talk or making a presentation on any given topic
A need to display multiple things going on at once, such as:
The SME(s)
An application or multiple applications that the SME(s) are using
Content/resources that learners are submitting in real-time (think Bluescape, T1V, Prysm, other)
The ability to annotate on top of the application(s) and point to things w/in the app(s)
Media being used to support the presentation such as pictures, graphics, graphs, videos, simulations, animations, audio, links to other resources, GPS coordinates for an app such as Google Earth, other
Other attendees (think Google Hangouts, Skype, Polycom, or other videoconferencing tools)
An (optional) representation of the Personal Assistant (such as today’s Alexa, Siri, M, Google Assistant, etc.) that’s being employed via the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

This new learning platform will also feature:

Voice-based commands to drive the system (via Natural Language Processing (NLP))
Language translation (using techs similar to what’s being used in Translate One2One, an earpiece powered by IBM Watson)
Speech-to-text capabilities for use w/ chatbots, messaging, inserting discussion board postings
Text-to-speech capabilities as an assistive technology and also for everyone to be able to be mobile while listening to what’s been typed
Chatbots
- For learning how to use the system
- For asking questions of – and addressing any issues with – the organization owning the system (credentials, payments, obtaining technical support, etc.)
- For asking questions within a course
As many profiles as needed per household
(Optional) Machine-to-machine-based communications to automatically launch the correct profile when the system is initiated (from one’s smartphone, laptop, workstation, and/or tablet to a receiver for the system)
(Optional) Voice recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
(Optional) Facial recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
(Optional) Upon system launch, to immediately return to where the learner previously left off
The capability of the webcam to recognize objects and bring up relevant resources for that object
A built in RSS feed aggregator – or a similar technology – to enable learners to tap into the relevant “streams of content” that are constantly flowing by them
Social media dashboards/portals – providing quick access to multiple sources of content and whereby learners can contribute their own “streams of content”

In the future, new forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) will be integrated into this new learning environment – providing entirely new means of collaborating with one another.

Likely players:

Amazon – personal assistance via Alexa
Apple – personal assistance via Siri
Google – personal assistance via Google Assistant; language translation
Facebook — personal assistance via M
Microsoft – personal assistance via Cortana; language translation
IBM Watson – cognitive computing; language translation
Polycom – videoconferencing
Blackboard – videoconferencing, application sharing, chat, interactive whiteboard
T1V, Prsym, and/or Bluescape – submitting content to a digital canvas/workspace
Samsung, Sharp, LCD, and others – for large displays with integrated microphones, speakers, webcams, etc.
Feedly – RSS aggregator
_________ – for providing backchannels
_________ – for tools to create videocasts and interactive videos
_________ – for blogs, wikis, podcasts, journals
_________ – for quizzes/assessments
_________ – for discussion boards/forums
_________ – for creating AR, MR, and/or VR-based content

Learning Ecosystems

Should technical communicators, trainers, & help desk personnel get trained on developing “workbots?”

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