Last December, Moby-Dick made one of my students gasp. It wasn't the first time this had happened (weird book), but nothing about the text itself produced the response. For the final project in my English class for high-school seniors, where we spend a semester reading Moby-Dick, I assigned a pretty standard eight-to-10-page research paper. One student, interested in finance, saw a connection between the plot and the 2008 financial crisis. He spent weeks thinking about the parallels, trying to find a way to make all of the pieces fit together into a cohesive argument about whaling and the exploitations of global capitalism.

Teachers are a creative bunch. They have to be to come up with lesson plans and exams that help students grow their minds and prevent those same students from relying too much on technology to enhance their work or to cheat. Which is why the rollout of OpenAI's ChatGPT has many teachers worried. The chatbot can answer almost any type of question, even if the answers aren't always accurate. Marketplace's Kimberly Adams spoke with Daniel Herman, an English teacher at Maybeck High School in Berkeley, California.

I've never liked high school English class. Maybe it's the fact that assignments are always super subjective. Maybe it's because the books that we're forced to read are long and boring. Maybe it's because Shakespeare is literally written in another language. What ends up happening because I don't really like English class is that I stop paying attention to what my teacher is saying and I don't read the books we're supposed to read.

The founders of Vise AI met when they were 13, a couple of teenagers more interested in applied artificial intelligence than English class. Fast-forward several years and the pair has relocated from the Midwest to San Francisco to raise money for a financial technology business they've been self-funding since 2016. As teenagers with an inordinate amount of AI knowledge, Samir Vasavada and Runik Mehrotra proved to be quite useful to large businesses, investment bankers and other financiers. Leveraging their AI know-how, they were paid $700 per hour by a consulting firm to teach financial "experts" about AI. Mehrotra, according to Vasavada, is a mathematical prodigy: "And that translates extremely well to AI, right, because what underlies AI is math," Vasavada, co-founder and chief executive officer of Vise AI, tells TechCrunch.

The founders of Vise AI met when they were 13, a couple of teenagers more interested in applied artificial intelligence than English class. Fast-forward several years and the pair has relocated from the Midwest to San Francisco to raise money for a financial technology business they've been self-funding since 2016. As teenagers with an inordinate amount of AI knowledge, Samir Vasavada and Runik Mehrotra proved to be quite useful to large businesses, investment bankers and other financiers. Leveraging their AI know-how, they were paid $700 per hour by a consulting firm to teach financial "experts" about AI. Mehrotra, according to Vasavada, is a mathematical prodigy: "And that translates extremely well to AI, right, because what underlies AI is math," Vasavada, co-founder and chief executive officer of Vise AI, tells TechCrunch.

English-speaking robots will be helping out in some 500 Japanese classrooms from next year as the country seeks to improve English skills among both children and teachers using artificial intelligence. The education ministry is planning a pilot project costing around ¥250 million ($227,000) to improve students' notoriously weak oral and written skills in the language, an official said. "AI robots already on the market have various functions. For example, they can check the pronunciation of each student's English, which is difficult for teachers to do," added the official in charge of international education, who asked not to be named. AI robots "are just one example of the trial, and we are planning other measures," such as using tablet apps and having online lessons with native speakers, he said.

English-speaking artificial intelligence (AI) robots will be helping out in some 500 Japanese classrooms from next year as the country seeks to improve its English skills, particularly among children and teachers. The education ministry is planning a pilot project costing around 250 million yen (US$227,000) to improve Japanese students' notoriously weak oral and written English, an official said. "AI robots already on the market have various functions. For example, they can check the pronunciation of each student's English, which is difficult for teachers to do," said the official in charge of international education, who asked not to be named. AI robots "are just one example of the trial and we are planning other measures" such as using tablet apps and having online lessons with native speakers, he said.

Tokyo: The government of Japan is planning to introduce English-speaking Artificial Intelligence (AI) robots in classrooms to help children improve their English speaking skills, considered one of the worst in the world. The Japanese education ministry would be launching a pilot programme to test the effectiveness of the initiative in April 2019, reports Efe news. The initiative will be initially rolled out in 500 schools throughout the country with the aim of fully implementing it in two years, public broadcaster NHK reported Saturday. The programme also includes study apps and online conversation sessions with native English speakers. Japan has proposed improving English skills ahead of the surge in tourists expected during the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Scientists are using artificial intelligence to build systems that can analyze the quality of classroom instruction and student engagement. School leaders and education researchers often rely on test scores to judge how well students are learning. But that ignores many important aspects of learning, such as the liveliness of classroom discussion or how engaged and motivated the students are. Expert observers in a classroom can immediately pick up on these unquantifiable moments of great teaching. But human observations are time-consuming and expensive.

Yi Wang was hearing the same refrain over and over: Why are English classes in China so expensive? The former Google product manager decided to do something about it and started an app called LiuLiShuo, which basically means "speaking fluently" in Mandarin. The app, which claims more than 30 million users, is one of scores of English-learning startups looking to disrupt China's hidebound language schools. To differentiate itself from products started by Internet giants like Baidu and Tencent, LiuLiShuo brings gaming and social media features to the genre. Users win points when they move to the next level and text each other encouragement and tips.