The general public is often closed off to academic perspectives on the potential benefits of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Research is often behind expensive paywalls. And even when they are accessible, they are often written in arcane languages that non-academics have a hard time parsing.
Nicholas Gertler, a first-year student at Yale University, saw a potential solution to these obstacles through the capabilities of generative AI itself.
Gertler, a research assistant at Yale's Digital Ethics Center (DEC), has been spearheading experiments in using generative AI to make bodies of knowledge widely accessible. He collaborated with his Rithvik “Ricky” Sabnekar, a high school senior from Texas and an accomplished developer, to create the Luciano Floridi Bot, also known as LuFlot. This is a free, AI-powered online educational tool designed to foster interest in the work of the Yale University philosopher and his DEC director. Luciano Floridi is a pioneer in information philosophy and one of the most cited living philosophers.
The developers believe this is the first time a chatbot has been trained on a corpus of academic literature and made available to the public for free.
““The idea was to democratize access to Professor Floridy's research,” said Gertler, who took on the project after discussing the possibility with the University of Floridy. “The issues he writes about impact everyone's lives, and more and more people are becoming aware of AI. We provide an AI-driven platform.”
The chatbot is intended to facilitate teaching and learning and has been trained on all the books Floridi has published during his more than 30-year career as an academic. Within seconds of receiving a query, users are provided with detailed and easy-to-understand answers derived from this vast amount of research.
You can integrate information from multiple sources and find connections between works that even Floridian might not have considered.
The tool has an in-text citation feature that allows users to trace the origin of provided information directly to the original text. If a question is asked outside the scope of the knowledge base, the bot will politely reply that the query is outside the scope of Floridi's expertise. However, related questions will receive prompt and courteous answers. For example, a question asking how to use AI ethically quickly yielded clear answers on his 8-point scale, citing sources.
This interface also allows users to ask follow-up questions.
““Anyone, regardless of their AI knowledge, can visit the website to ask questions and have a conversation with the founder of information philosophy,” Gertler said. “I think that's amazing.”
The tool warns users to critically evaluate their answers, as they may produce inaccurate or biased information.
Floridi, a professor of practice in the Cognitive Science Program at Yale School of Arts and Sciences, is impressed with chatbots and their young developers.
““This center focuses on the impact of digital technology and the ethics of AI, so it makes a lot of sense to have bots available to answer people's questions,” Floridi said. “The bot is a great tool. Nicholas and Ricky deserve all the credit. I'm just the support band.”
He also became a user. Floridi asked the chatbot about the asymmetry between good and evil as part of a paper he was writing.
“I got great answers and referenced exact concepts and ideas that I had written but had completely forgotten about. ” he said. “I can instantly draw interesting connections between what I published last year and what he published in 1991. It's amazing.”
dynamic knowledge
Gertler, a Los Angeles native, became interested in the potential of AI to benefit society about five years ago after watching a YouTube video on the subject.
“I love thinking about the social and ethical implications of new technologies and how they can be used to help people, especially those in underserved and marginalized communities. ” he said.
He joins two youth-led organizations dedicated to harnessing new technology for the greater good. He serves as his AI and education advisor for Encode Justice, his organization of over 1,000 high school and college students around the world who advocate for the use of AI. In a direction that benefits society. He is also vice president of Fidutam, a civil society organization that brings together more than 1,600 members to advocate for and build responsible technology.
At DEC, Gertler is exploring ways to use generative AI to create educational frameworks that can provide rich learning experiences. He also serves as the first “AI Student Ambassador” at Yale University's Purve Center for Teaching and Learning, where he works with faculty to integrate AI into instruction and educate students and faculty about the ethical use of AI in pedagogy. We are working on developing resources.
The LuFlot project came together quickly. Earlier this year, Gertler showed Floridi a chatbot he had created for his cognitive science class, intended to help students learn the course material. After some conversations, the idea for LuFlot was born.
Rather than relying on existing tools like ChatGPT, Gertler and Floridi decided to build a custom chatbot from scratch with its own user interface. Gertler recruited Sabnekar, who attends his Plano East High School in Plano, Texas, to help develop the bot. The two met through Fidutum. At Fidutum, Mr. Sabnekar directs the technical development of organizational projects.
“Ricky is technically great,” Gertler said.
The two founded Mylon Education, a startup that aims to transform the educational landscape by reimagining the system in which individuals generate and develop ideas. LuFlot is the startup's first project.
“Our goal is to find ways to reconcile human agency and creativity with AI-powered structural support,” said Gertler. “This involves incorporating AI tools into the writing process without inhibiting people’s agency. It’s not about using a chatbot to write an essay. It’s about using this technology to deepen your knowledge. , it's important to develop your creativity and critical thinking skills.
Floridi said generative AI and other innovations are changing the way people learn. Therefore, new approaches to education are needed.
LuFlot has demonstrated that training an AI chatbot based on a corpus of academics to generate high-quality answers to user prompts is cheap, feasible, and efficient, he said. . Chatbots can be trained based on other academics' research and instructors' entire course content, potentially helping students learn and retain information.
“It’s much more convenient than just posting my lecture notes online,” he said.
Floridi says he is reminded of Plato's criticism of the invention of writing. The idea is that reading text always conveys the same answer, so it is not a dynamic means of sharing knowledge.
““Bots are dynamic,” he said. “If you ask the same question slightly differently, you won't get the same answer. And you can also ask more specifically. And the more information you train with, the more you'll grow.”
To have a conversation with LuFlot about the ethics of digital technology, please visit this link.
