4 potentials that AI has to overcome education problems in city

The presence of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has made the global education ecosystem busy utilizing AI. The article "Harvard Announces it Will Teach Students Using an Artificial Intelligence Instructor Next Semester" reports that a team of teachers from a basic programming course at Harvard University, United States (US) is conducting a teaching experiment using an assistant based on the Chat Generative Pre-training Transformer (chatGPT), namely an artificial intelligence system that works using a conversation format.

Even though it looks very promising, we can still find misuse of AI for undesirable things in the world of education. For example, in the case of a student who does academic assignments in the form of essays with the help of Open AI.

However, we cannot immediately reject the presence of AI. Because currently, AI offers potential that previous technology could not provide. In fact, in 2019, in a program entitled Mobile Learning Week, UNESCO stated that AI has the potential to accelerate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4, namely quality education.

How about Indonesia?

In Indonesia itself, the 4th Sustainable Development Goal was formulated with the aim of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and increasing lifelong learning opportunities for all.

In this regard, AI has the potential to accelerate the achievement of these goals, namely:

1. Adaptation potential

AI has great potential to create education tailored to the needs of every student in Indonesia. Conventional education systems often view children's intelligence from a uniform perspective. For example, all students are expected to master the same subjects with a certain minimum score required.

This approach is often applied because educational institutions face obstacles in providing personalized and inclusive evaluations to each student. With the presence of AI, we can see the emergence of education that is more modern and focuses on inclusivity.

AI allows us to develop educational methods that are more adaptive and responsive to individual student needs. According to research conducted by (Baihaqi Siregar, lecturer at the University of North Sumatra, Indonesia, and his colleagues in 2019), AI can help us identify multiple intelligences in children based on their activities on social media.

2. Space and access potential

One problem that is still common in Indonesia is the equal distribution of education quality. This happened because the government had difficulty reaching students in remote areas.

AI enables the development of e-learning platforms that can be accessed by anyone, including those living in remote areas. Through this e-learning platform, students in various regions in Indonesia can access a variety of quality learning materials without being limited by geographic location.

This not only helps in equalizing access to education across the country, in line with Sustainable Development Goal 4, but also opens up new opportunities for distance education, online training and a variety of learning resources that can be accessed globally. However, of course, this requires a commitment from the government to promote the development of digital infrastructure that is evenly distributed throughout Indonesia.

3. Potential teacher availability

Many regions in Indonesia still have difficulty getting quality teachers. In this context, the presence of AI can play the role of a virtual teacher.

With AI, students can get quality teaching wherever they are. This can of course help students who have limited geographical access to still get quality education without having to physically attend school.

4. Potential to reduce teacher workload

The education ecosystem in Indonesia often uses a ratio between teachers and students. A ratio of 1:40, for example, means that 1 teacher will accompany 40 students in the class. However, it does not rule out the possibility that the teacher accompanied not only 40 children. Especially in areas where the number of teachers is small. Thus, the teacher's workload doubles, for example in terms of evaluating learning outcomes.

In this context, AI can be used to grade students' work and assignments automatically. With the presence of AI, teachers can save time in the assessment process and provide quick and impartial feedback to students. So, teachers have more time to provide individual guidance to students who need extra assistance.

From the description above, it can be seen that AI does have various potentials that can be utilized to achieve the 4th Sustainable Development Goal. However, it's important to remember that as impressive as AI's advances are, AI is ultimately just a means to an end. This means that the use of AI must still be within the correct corridors and under the full control of the user to prevent errors and opportunities for crime