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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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When the Teaching Assistant Is a RobotLast spring, Ashok K. Goel pulled off one of the great pranks in the history of artificial intelligence. In an online course, Mr. Goel, a computer-science professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, relied on nine teaching assistants, including one named Jill Watson, to handle questions from the 300 students. Near the end of the term, Mr. Goel revealed to students that Jill was in fact a computerized assistant, powered by IBM’s Watson technology, which is designed to answer questions. A few students had suspicions about Jill along the way, but one thought Mr. Goel might be a computer, too.
Read the rest of the article here: http://www.chronicle.com/article/When-the-Teaching-Assistant-Is/238114
