The growing popularity of artificial intelligence (AI) programmes, which have shown themselves increasingly capable in recent months of generating images, videos, music, computer programming code and even texts of all kinds in a matter of seconds, producing seemingly appropriate and coherent results, in many instances – and in many others, not – is arousing fascination and concern all over the world, especially among artists and creators. What the AI tools of today can do is, at times, so spectacular and convincing that it is hard not to think it must be the work of a conscious being that comprehends what is being asked of it and understands what it produces in response. This is clearly not the case, but for the public at large it suddenly seems like we are witnessing the sudden emergence of revolutionary technology, full of potential and promise but also perils that could transform our world. This day may come, but it is further away than the flurry of expectation may lead us to think. What has happened in recent months, above all, is that the current technology, quite widespread and known to all researchers who had hitherto been experimenting with it behind closed doors, has suddenly started to see the light of day, not only with a view to introducing it to the public, arousing interest and attracting investors, but also so that the programmes could benefit from interacting with people and be'trained' by millions of requests and users at the same time, a massive amount of activity and information that no company could otherwise secure for their AIs.

This is NOT a post apocalyptic world where robots destroy everything standing in their way as they take over the world... yet. However, in our post pandemic world, education has forever changed thanks to hybrid and online learning. With the integration of technology in a classroom setting and lives being reshaped through remote living, learning is in a transformational era. With this changing environment comes the need for support and that support can come from the trending area of artificial intelligence. "As computer systems that have been designed to interact with the world through capabilities (for example, visual perception and speech recognition) and intelligent behaviors (for example, assessing the available information and then taking the most sensible action to achieve a stated goal) that we would think of as essentially human", Oxford Dictionary (2005).

The coronavirus lockdown and the school closures that have resulted have had a huge impact on the education of 1.2 billion children across 186 countries. Teachers have been scrambling to keep in touch with their classes, while parents have been trying to keep bored children engaged in learning while cut off from school and fellow students. As a result, virtual classrooms, language apps, online tutoring, and online education software (and new hardware) have seen a surge popularity, with some reports suggesting the market could hit $350 billion by 2025. But can the digital revolution in education, long been promised but rarely achieved, take a step forward as a result of these changes? Speaking at the CogX 2020 conference, Rose Luckin, professor of Learner Centered Design at University College London's Knowledge Lab, argued that the only way for the industry to evolve was to build on what it has learnt recently.

News that Pearson, the world's largest textbook publisher, is phasing out print publications for higher education to adopt a resolutely digital-first policy may signal an eventual full stop for traditional book learning. In the view of Mike Buchanan, executive director of HMC, which represents independent school head teachers, digital education will unlock a less rigid approach to classroom-based learning, as well as enable closer collaboration with pupils' families. "In a growing number of schools, the use of modern management information and recording systems to harvest details of classroom activities and pupil progress is already allowing parents to access and aggregate their child's attainment records," he says. "In the future, this will no doubt see the traditional termly report being replaced by daily digital updates." Mr Buchanan predicts individual academic achievement will be charted by artificial intelligence (AI), rather than by a plethora of exams, and argues that for teachers disenchanted by the current need to "teach to the test", the freedom to pursue a more rounded curriculum will foster a new optimism.

Machine learning (ML) is a data-processing exercise and a sub-field of artificial intelligence (AI). The term refers to the construction of the software that enables machines to learn'through experience' using algorithms. It processes sets of observations – or data records – and infers new patterns or rules arising from these. When the data is changed, the ML algorithm spots this and learns, so it can produce or predict a new result. ML was used to detect spamming in the early 2000s, when the volume of spam threatened the effective use of email.

In a 2015 interview, Bill Gates imagined a world where Artificially Intelligent Tutoring Systems (AITS) have transformed learning. He spoke of AI-powered tutors offering a personalized approach for each student. They could work with a kid struggling to wrap his head around algebra while his classmates moved on to something more advanced; they could work with a grandmother determined to learn a new language. These systems wouldn't replace teachers. Rather, they'd enhance human teachers' abilities to tailor lessons to each student without knocking their class schedule off track.

Beacon is unlike any other member of staff at Staffordshire University. It is available 24/7 to answer students' questions, and deals with a number of queries every day – mostly the same ones over and over again – but always stays incredibly patient. That patience is perhaps what gives it away: Beacon is an artificial intelligence (AI) education tool, and the first digital assistant of its kind to be operating at a UK university. Staffordshire developed Beacon with cloud service provider ANS and launched it in January this year. The chatbot, which can be downloaded in a mobile app, enhances the student experience by answering timetable questions and suggesting societies to join.

Spurred on, no doubt, by the current spate of books and articles about AIED (artificial intelligence in education), the IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG is organising an online event on the topic in November of this year. Currently, the most visible online references to AI in language learning are related to Glossika, basically a language learning system that uses spaced repetition, whose marketing department has realised that references to AI might help sell the product. They're not alone – see, for example, Knowble which I reviewed earlier this year . In the wider world of education, where AI has made greater inroads than in language teaching, every day brings more stuff: How artificial intelligence is changing teaching, 32 Ways AI is Improving Education, How artificial intelligence could help teachers do a better job, etc., etc. Common to all these publications is the claim that AI will radically change education. When it comes to language teaching, a similar claim has been made by Donald Clark (described by Anthony Seldon as an education guru but perhaps best-known to many in ELT for his demolition of Sugata Mitra).

There is a saying in education that you treasure what you measure. Going by the standardized tests that dominate schools in many countries around the world, we're teaching children that we value only a very narrow definition of intelligence--the ability to solve word problems about train times, or identify the purpose of a World War I treaty on a multiple-choice test. The truth is human intelligence is vast and complex. And in an age when artificial intelligence is capable of nailing IQ tests and mastering knowledge-based curricula, humans may be setting ourselves up to be outshone by technology. "I think we are in danger of dumbing ourselves down," says Rose Luckin, a professor of learning-centered design at University College London who has been studying artificial intelligence and learning for more than 25 years.

Thanks to advances in AI and machine learning, a slow but steady transformation is coming to education -- under the hood. When you compare the typical 21st century classroom with that of the early 1900s, the differences aren't terribly obvious. Teachers will be standing in front, giving instructions and sharing notes on a modern-day version of the old blackboard -- say, an overhead projector or a shared computer display. Students will be sitting at their desks in the classroom or watching via online video-conferencing software. The technology has changed: A lot of the tools and processes have been digitized, some of it has been automated, and geographical barriers have been removed to some extent -- but the actors and elements have remained much the same.