Victor Orlovski speaks out about the problems facing modern education and how generative AI will become an indispensable assistant in the impending turnabout of the education system.

Victor Orlovski: how does education shape our future?

Today, less than a third of the world’s population has access to quality secondary education. And of those about 800 million can get access to a decent level of higher education. Less than 50 million people are involved in innovative development that moves progress forward. These are the people who are involved in science and innovative entrepreneurship. Such poor numbers are obviously the factors hindering the progress of mankind as a whole. Imagine if the figures were different and not 50 million, but, say, 200 or 800 million people were involved in the development of innovations. According to Victor Orlovski, this situation can be changed radically through the introduction of a new education system involving the use of AI. Moreover, it is necessary to start teaching children from nil.

“I hope that in 25 years the use of artificial intelligence and new technologies will allow 90% of the world’s population to have access to quality education,” says expert Victor Orlovski. To do this, it is necessary to not only improve the educational process at its core and introduce a number of changes to it, but also restructure it from the ground up, creating a completely new type of educational institution.

The education industry is very conservative. There is a reason why the very concept of a ‘school’ is associated with something established, ossified, and inherited down from generations. “Despite the fact that education is always about acquiring new knowledge, the modern education system is profoundly conservative and no longer answers the requirements of our time,” as Victor Orlovski believes.

Modern education – at both the school and university levels – is built on the principle of the British education system, which was formed at the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 19th century. Children from peasant families were meant to become the working class, with the engineers trained for achieving industrial progress gaining social prominence. Here are the disadvantages of the education system at that time:

• Mass teaching. For a certain time, it was required to teach a large number of children the same knowledge and skills, making them participants in the production process.

• Limited amount of knowledge. The students received only the information they needed to work at factories and then improved their skills and knowledge in narrowly focused universities.

• Memorization of material and lack of training in solving problems.

According to Victor Orlovski, modern society has come to understand that education should be hyper-personalized and continuous, as the amount of knowledge is snowballing, and the skills necessary for performing modern duties are changing constantly. Also, education should be hyper-targeted for specific students, which is a task that can be achieved through the use of artificial intelligence.

Victor Orlovski: how AI will improve education

Modern technologies allow us to closely monitor the following parameters:

• Student involvement;

• Perception of information in various formats;

• Material provision methodology;

• Loss of focus on the part of students.

Some children can maintain focus for longer and work harder, while others need to be distracted more often to unwind. Some children have well-developed visual perception, as they assimilate information on the basis of images, while others need text and tables. Existing technologies are able to take into account all these factors and present the material to each student in a way that suits them best.

At the same time, the material itself should be varied and exceed the modern school curriculum, resembling a cyclical process akin to a game. Though it was difficult to formulate an approach like that in the past, such content is available to the majority of students now in the form of texts, audio and video materials, pictures, and tables. The material needs to be adapted to the way every particular child learns – and the latest developments in technology can help us achieve that. Generative AI is capable of shaping such content through self-learning and by presenting new types of material in a gamified manner, while controlling the student’s focus and involvement. Also, the material should be injected through the solution of complex problems requiring knowledge of various subjects.

However, according to Victor Orlovski, the introduction of AI in education may face the following obstacles:

• Rejection of such personalized learning mechanisms in different countries, because, as we know, the better is the enemy of the good. As parents would put it – “We were taught well and we became decent people, therefore we want our children to be taught in the same way”;

• Fear and reluctance to experiment on children. Such outcries are being heard in many developed countries when it comes to changing the education system.

According to Victor Orlovski, there is great potential for startups and the development of technologies in the education sector. This aspect revolves primarily around generative AI technologies, but other innovations as well.

According to Victor Orlovski, technologies alone will not be able to ensure the achievement of a breakthrough, as they must be adapted to specific tasks. Society needs to be prepared for such shifts. Of course, the application of innovations in education, especially generative artificial intelligence, will cause much debate

“AI will offer children personalized learning and modern, continuously adapting formats of education. The result will be the setting of new tasks that will constantly adjust to the motivation, focus, and mood of the students. I hope the children of the future will be the happiest people on our planet, because their learning process will be exciting and inspiring!” as Orlovski Victor added.