LA school chatbot vendor goes bust, student data at risk
LA school chatbot vendor goes bust, student data at risk
On March 20, the Los Angeles Unified School District launched an exciting new chatbot: “Ed,” a friend to students and parents! [Ed] LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho painted a magical pic…
whatever you call it he’s going to talk to you in a hundred different languages, he’s going to connect with you, he’s going to fall in love with you
Clicking through to one of the source articles
Through an algorithm that analyzes troves of student information from multiple sources, the chatbot was designed to offer tailored responses to questions like “what grade does my child have in math?”
Okay, I'm not a big-brain edtech integration admin, but I seem to recall that like fifteen years ago we had a website that my parents could check to see my grade in math. I feel like this was already a solved problem honestly.
Ah, but checking the actual grade gives a correct answer. Who wouldn't want to change that for a statistically likely answer?
Back in my day, we brought home a report card every six to nine weeks. I remain unconvinced that more frequent reporting is actually more informative. More appealing to helicopter parents, certainly, but that's not the same thing.
Back in my day I told my mom "hey I got this grade today" and she was like "oh cool, good job" and then we ate dinner.
[The AI]’s going to fall in love with you
Fortunately for everyone, they went out of business before a mandatory reporter had to make the weirdest call ever to CPS.
Disruption!