Vassilis Katsouros, Research Director and Director of the Institute for Language and Speech Processing Institute (ILSP) of the Athena Research Center (EK Athens), will present the transformative effect of generative artificial intelligence on the educational process
Enabling learners: transforming education with the power of generative artificial intelligence (απογευματινή ομιλία).
The talk can be between 30 and 60 minutes.
The talk will present the transformative effect of generative artificial intelligence on the educational process and its prospects to motivate students towards a more creative, exploratory and personalized approach to learning.
Recent advances in artificial intelligence, notably the introduction of generative artificial intelligence technologies such as ChatGPT, have ushered in a new era of possibilities in education, reshaping teaching and learning and modernizing educational methodologies. These technologies are increasingly being leveraged to create sophisticated interactive AI applications. These applications, with their advanced capabilities, promise enriched, personalized and interactive learning as well as multi-dimensional teaching support, through natural conversation. At the same time, the introduction of generative artificial intelligence in education has raised new questions about its ethical, safe and meaningful use, as well as new needs to control its use based on a human-centric approach.
The European program “AI4EDU: Conversational AI assistant for teaching and learning” (https://ai4edu.eu), which is coordinated by the Institute for Language and Speech Processing of the Athena Research Center, develops an innovative approach to the integration of artificial intelligence in education with the development of the conversational artificial intelligence tools, Study Buddy and Teacher Mate. The initiative seeks to reshape learning and teaching by emphasizing ethical and inclusive applications of artificial intelligence. In addition, it brings together experts from the fields of education and technology, with the aim of exploring the multiple ways in which artificial intelligence systems can contribute to enhancing the creativity and differentiation of teaching and learning, while addressing the important challenges and the ethical concerns that accompany the application of artificial intelligence in educational contexts.
The Athena Research and Innovation Center in Information, Communication and Knowledge Technologies (Athena RC) was founded in 2003 and has facilities in three cities, Athens, Patras and Xanthi. It is the only research center in Greece that is exclusively focused on Digital Sciences and Technologies. Its structure includes four Institutes, on Language and Speech Processing, Industrial Systems, Information Management Systems, and Robotics respectively, and seven Units, on Technology Clusters, Space Programs, Environmental and Networking Technologies and Applications, Pharma-Informatics, Sustainable Development, Artificial Intelligence-Data Science-Algorithms, and Women’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship, respectively.
The vision of Athena RC is to conduct outstanding research in Information and Communication Technologies, pursuing solutions to global challenges, addressing local needs, and producing novel and deep technological results with a broad impact on other sciences, industry, and society at large. In addition to research on core problems in digital technologies, interdisciplinarity is a fundamental characteristic of the activities of Athena RC, with particular emphasis (but no limitation) on computational elements of the fields of precision agriculture, agri-food, precision medicine, biology, biodiversity, earth observation, space science, engineering, mechanics, linguistics, archaeology, and the arts. Next to its research portfolio, Athena RC is also very strong in innovation and entrepreneurial activities, including the co-foundation of several successful spin-off companies. The key asset of Athena RC is its researchers, collaborating faculty, engineers, other professionals, and students, whose deep technical expertise and extensive experience bring Athena to a position of prominence with respect to addressing and solving some challenging scientific and societal problems of our times.
Vassilis Katsouros is Research Director and the Director of the Institute for Language and Speech Processing Institute (ILSP) of the Athena Research Center (EK Athens) since June 2019.
He graduated in 1992 from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens, in 1993 he received his M.Sc. degree with distinction in Communications and Signal Processing from Imperial College, University of London and in 1997 his Ph.D. from the same University in mathematical modeling and stochastic control.
His research interests include digital signal processing, statistical analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence with applications to a wide variety of signals and data (voice, music, image, video, sensorial data, etc.). He has authored a significant number of scientific publications in the above fields in books, scientific journals, as well as international conferences.
