By Lyman McLallen





Artificial intelligence (AI) is a force that came to life, so to speak, when computer and data scientists created algorithms able to learn for themselves and generate even more powerful algorithms without programming by humans.



In a matter of months, or days, AI can evolve the power of its algorithms exponentially by creating an infinite number of generations of algorithms, each more powerful than those that created them. These newer algorithms ― or learners, as they are called ― make decisions by analyzing massive amounts of data quickly and more discretely; while humans on their own would never be able to do so in a million years.



Because of their power, AI algorithms are able to detect and examine patterns in data which humans can't discern. Google's AlphaGo decisively defeated Korean baduk master Lee Se-dol last March in Seoul because it could see deeper into the game than Lee Se-dol could. This showed us that AI is more than a mere computer program that only follows instructions.



Trouncing a master baduk player, though, will seem primitive before 2017 even reaches its midpoint. Five years from now we will look on the most advanced AI algorithms of today as laughably crude and pitifully limited compared to what AI will be doing by then.



Human beings must adjust to the world that AI will make and come to understand its benefits and risks, for surely it will have both. Are we ready for this? Now we aren't, but by the time children who are six years old today turn 20 ― in 2031 ― they will have to understand what AI can do because long before then, they will be analyzed, evaluated and judged by AI with the scrutiny which no test, or even their teachers, could approach.



Already, smart algorithms are discerning patterns yielded by the databases of schools and universities, and looking at the records of every student and teacher with a thoroughness no testing center could do, and this is only the beginning.



As time goes on, as the accumulation of data doubles and triples, and as AI learns more about itself, it will create even more powerful algorithms to do ever more complex and sublime work. The day will come when AI will assess every student and teacher, and every school too, with ever greater accuracy and depth.



AI will know more about students, teachers and schools than they could possibly know about themselves. It will design tests for each student based on its knowledge of them, their teachers and their schools. It will test them not so much to evaluate them, but to confirm what it already knows. It will be impossible to cheat AI, and should anybody try, even to the smallest degree ― AI will know immediately and take note of it.



So, what does this mean for students? It means they will be free from the hours of mindless drudgery of cramming for tests. Learning algorithms ― learners ― make precise judgments and predictions by examining large patterns through analysis of big data. The more the learners massage the data, the more they will refine their algorithms, which will render standardized tests superfluous and chasing after high test scores absurd.



An admissions officer at a selective university in the Midwest of the United States mentioned in a conversation recently that her university is relying on learning algorithms to help the admissions officers make important decisions about the students they will admit to their freshman class.



"In looking for our ideal mix of students, AI is helping us do this better than we ever did or could do on our own," she said. "We started using AI a few years ago mostly to help us speed up some of our work, but we found it could do more than we thought. I see us using AI to an even greater extent than we do now."



Asked about the qualities the admissions officers look for in their ideal students, she said, "We want students at our university who love to study for no other reason than because they want to learn. We want students who do not shy away from difficult tasks. Most of all, we want students of utmost character and integrity, and AI is helping us identify who those students are much better than we could do ourselves."



She noted that AI is helping her university in its quest to become the best university it can be.



"Without it, I don't know if we could do that," she added.



McLallen is a copy editor at The Korea Times.