Shadow of the smart machine: Will machine learning end?

We will teach machines to learn. But what will be the consequences of them taking an increasing role in teaching? Sam Smith argues that the growing use of machine learning in teaching and marking students' work, risks undervaluing and losing the unquantifiable skills that drive diversity, creativity and innovation. It was a 19th century folly that there was a hierarchy of progress - a canard that placed the aboriginal societies of Australia at the bottom, and the Strand in London at the peak. History may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes.