# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
AI expert Joseph Qualls thinks it will change the way kids learn. But it also raises some big issues.

smithsonian.com

For Joseph Qualls, it all started with video games.

That got him "messing around with an AI program," and ultimately led to a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Memphis. Soon after, he started his own company, called RenderMatrix, which focused on using AI to help people make decisions.

Much of the company's work has been with the Defense Department, particularly during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when the military was at the cutting edge in the use of sensors and seeing how AI could be used to help train soldiers to function in a hostile, unfamiliar environment.

Qualls is now a clinical assistant professor and researcher at the University of Idaho's college of engineering, and he hasn't lost any of his fascination with the potential of AI to change many aspects of modern life. While the military has been the leading edge in applying AI-where machines learn by recognizing patterns, classifying data, and adjusting to mistakes they make-the corporate world is now pushing hard to catch up. The technology has made fewer inroads in education, but Qualls believes it's only a matter of time before AI becomes a big part of how children learn.
So, how do you see artificial intelligence affecting how kids learn?
It's often seen as being a key component of the concept of personalized education, where each student follows a unique mini-curriculum based on his or her particular interests and abilities. AI, the thinking goes, can not only help children zero in on areas where they're most likely to succeed, but also will, based on data from thousands of other students, help teachers shape the most effective way for individual students to learn.
You have a very young daughter. How would you foresee AI affecting her education?
Smithsonian.com recently talked to Qualls about how AI could profoundly affect education, and also some of the big challenges it faces.

People have already heard about personalized medicine. That's driven by AI. Well, the same sort of thing is going to happen with personalized education. I don't think you're going to see it as much at the university level. But do I see people starting to interact with AI when they're very young. It could be in the form of a teddy bear that begins to build a profile of you, and that profile can help guide how you learn throughout your life. From the profile, the AI could help build a better educational experience. That's really where I think this is going to go over the next 10 to 20 years.

It's interesting because people think of them as two completely different fields, but AI and psychology are inherently linked now. Where the AI comes in is that it will start to analyze the psychology of humans. And I'll throw a wrench in here. Psychology is also starting to analyze the psychology of AI. Most the projects I work on now have a full-blown psychology team and they're asking questions like 'Why did the AI make this decision?'

But getting back to my daughter. What AI would start doing is trying to figure out her psychology profile. It's not static; it will change over time. But as it sees how she's going to change, the AI could make predictions based on data from my daughter, but also from about 10,000 other girls her same age, with the same background. And, it begins to look at things like "Are you really an artist or are you more mathematically inclined?"

It can be a very complex system. This is really pie-in-the-sky artificial intelligence. It's really about trying to understand who you are as an individual and how you change over time.

More and more AI-based systems will become available over the coming years, giving my daughter faster access to a far superior education than any we ever had. My daughter will be exposed to ideas faster, and at her personalized pace, always keeping her engaged and allowing her to indirectly influence her own education.

What concerns might you have about using AI to personalize education?
So, AI can make mistakes?
The biggest issue facing artificial intelligence right now is the question of 'Why did the AI make a decision?' AI can make mistakes. It can miss the bigger picture. In terms of a student, an AI may decide that a student does not have a mathematical aptitude and never begin exposing that student to higher math concepts. That could pigeonhole them into an area where they might not excel. Interestingly enough, this is a massive problem in traditional education. Students are left behind or are not happy with the outcome after university. Something was lost.

Personalized education will require many different disciplines working together to solve many issues like the one above. The problem we have now in research and academia is the lack of collaborative research concerning AI from multiple fields-science, engineering, medical, arts. Truly powerful AI will require all disciplines working together.

It can be wrong. We know humans make mistakes. We're not used to AI making mistakes.

We have a hard enough time telling people why the AI made a certain decision. Now we have to try to explain why AI made a mistake. You really get down to the guts of it. AI is just a probability statistics machine.

Say, it tells me my child has a tendency to be very mathematically oriented, but she also shows an aptitude for drawing. Based on the data it has, the machine applies a weight to certain things about this person. And, we really can't explain why it does what it does. That's why I'm always telling people that we have to build this system in a way that it doesn't box a person in.

If you go back to what we were doing for the military, we were trying to be able to analyze if a person was a threat to a soldier out in the field. Say one person is carrying an AK-47 and another is carrying a rake. What's the difference in their risk?
How big a challenge is that?
That seems pretty simple. But you have to ask deeper questions. What's the likelihood of the guy carrying the rake becoming a terrorist? You have to start looking at family backgrounds, etc.

So, you still have to ask the question, 'What if the AI's wrong?' That's the biggest issue facing AI everywhere.

One of the great engineering challenges now is reverse engineering the human brain. You get in and then you see just how complex the brain is. As engineers, when we look at the mechanics of it, we start to realize that there is no AI system that even comes close to the human brain and what it can do.

We're looking at the human brain and asking why humans make the decisions they do to see if that can help us understand why AI makes a decision based on a probability matrix. And we're still no closer.
Does that concern you?
Actually, what drives reverse engineering of the brain and the personalization of AI is not research in academia, it's more the lawyers coming in and asking 'Why is the AI making these decisions?' because they don't want to get sued.
Getting back to personalized education. How does this affect teachers?
In the past year, most of the projects I've worked on, we've had one or two lawyers, along with psychologists, on the team. More people are asking questions like 'What's the ethics behind that?' Another big question that gets asked is 'Who's liable?'

The greatest part of AI research now is that people are now asking that question 'Why?' Before, that question relegated to the academic halls of computer science. Now, AI research is branching out to all domains and disciplines. This excites me greatly. The more people involved in AI research and development, the better chance we have at alleviating our concerns and more importantly, our fears.

With education, what's going to happen, you're still going to have monitoring. You're going to have teachers who will be monitoring data. They'll become more data scientists who understand the AI and can evaluate the data about how students are learning.

You're going to need someone who's an expert watching the data and watching the student. There will need to be a human in the loop for some time, maybe for at least 20 years. But I could be completely wrong. Technology moves so fast these days.

It really is a fascinating time in the AI world, and I think it's only going to accelerate more quickly. We've gone from programming machines to do things to letting the machines figure out what to do. That changes everything. I certainly understand the concerns that people have about AI. But when people push a lot of those fears, it tends to drive people away. You start to lose research opportunities.

It should be more about pushing a dialogue about how AI is going to change things. What are the issues? And, how are we going to push forward?

About Randy Rieland

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is Artificial Intelligence the Key to Personalized Education?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
smithsonian.com For Joseph Qualls, it all started with video games. That got him "messing around with an AI program," and ultimately led to a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Memphis. Soon after, he started his own company, called RenderMatrix, which focused on using AI to help people make decisions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The job of teaching is often cited as one that won't be replaced by artificial intelligence. But according to Joseph Qualls, an AI researcher at the University of Idaho, education, especially the early-childhood variety, is ripe for transformation through AI.

The money quote: "I see people starting to interact with AI when they're very young. It could be in the form of a teddy bear that begins to build a profile of you, and that profile can help guide how you learn throughout your life," he tells Smithsonian Magazine. "From the profile, the AI could help build a better educational experience. That's really where I think this is going to go over the next 10 to 20 years."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How AI will supercharge early-childhood education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The job of teaching is often cited as one that won't be replaced by artificial intelligence. But according to Joseph Qualls, an AI researcher at the University of Idaho, education, especially the early-childhood variety, is ripe for transformation through AI. The money quote: "I see people starting to interact with AI when they're very young.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
真正"AI消费品"还有多远 CES物灵科技给出答案-中新网

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
物灵科技不落窠臼地开辟了人工智能领域的蓝海，从一开始就坚定地做强调用户体验的C端，抓住了人工智能背后的情感经济。

# data[].attributes.body
1. 3.5 -year-old and 3-year-old kids who read picture books with a reading robot
2. Geng Henxing full-time mother who use reading robot to companion her kid
3. Xu Guohuai Principle of a kindergarten in Henan Province
4. Zhang Qian CEO assistant of Wuling Tech Company
5. He Jiabin Luka's Designer

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
353 Serra Mall, Gates Building, Stanford, CA, 94305-9020

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
reconstructiveprocess of episodic memory recall, how they also supportconstructiveprocesses such as imagination and future thinking, and why they breakdown in disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and amnesia. Mysystematically connecting imagination with episodic memory for the first time was included in thetop 10 scientific breakthroughs of 2007 in the annual list compiled by Science.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Yoshua Bengio was Program Chair for NIPS'2008 and General Chair for NIPS'2009 (NIPS is the flagship conference in the areas of learning algorithms and neural computation). Since 1999, he has been co-organizing the Learning Workshop with Yann Le Cun, with whom he has also created the International Conference on Representation Learning (ICLR).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ABOUT

ANDREW NG

Andrew Ng is VP & Chief Scientist of Baidu; Co-Chairman and Co-Founder of Coursera; and an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University. In 2011 he led the development of Stanford University's main MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) platform and also taught an online Machine Learning class that was offered to over 100,000 students, leading to the founding of Coursera.
more >
VIDEO

INTRODUCTION TO O2O

There is a rise of O2O (online to offline) services, in which users are using their cellphones to get their cars washed, make last-minute restaurant reservations, find discounted deals, order prescription medicine, and more. Cellphones are becoming a "remote control" for the physical environment around us. O2O's rise has been rapid in China, because of its high population density. On a recent trip there, I shot this sequence of eight videos to give viewers a sense of this rise of O2O.
more >

Andrew Ng, chief scientist at Baidu, answered user-submi ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ABOUT ANDREW NG Andrew Ng is VP & Chief Scientist of Baidu; Co-Chairman and Co-Founder of Coursera; and an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University. In 2011 he led the development of Stanford University's main MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) platform and also taught an online Machine Learning class that was offered to over 100,000 students, leading to the founding of Coursera.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The way IBM have trained Watson is as impressive as the technology itself.

Watson is trained by real, live human beings. This allows it to learn not just general knowledge, but also the deep-cut things about the areas it needs to be an expert in.

The human teachers give Watson a very large amount of data that is clearly labeled. Then these experts go through the information with Watson and refine the output, helping it to make sense of what it's learning.

By going through many cycles of input, output, and preening, Watson can start to make sense of what it's seeing on its own.

Yet many fear the training of AI systems are open for bias based on the information being fed and the individuals training the systems. IBM believes that AI actually provides the means for bias to be mitigated or even engineered out of systems. When AI systems demonstrate inherent biases, they are reflecting the data that people give them.

They are confirming - and making visible - bias that already exists. Researchers at IBM believe such bias can be algorithmically detected and corrected and are working with organisations to ensure their AI strategies seek to mitigate bias. This area of research is absolutely critical to trust and transparency of AI.

This is why Watson, and AI in general, can never replace people, as some have questioned as the tech has developed. Watson works best as a tool for people, and learns better through the collaboration of man and machine.

For example, Watson learned how to understand casual dialects and interpret tone with Natural Language Understanding and Tone Analyser, respectively, which is useful in education settings when a language translator is needed. There's also a Watson Virtual Assistant that can act as a chatbot for businesses, which can aid in things like customer support and even banking.

Possibly most important is Watson Knowledge Studio. This program allows people to train Watson in specific industries or areas of expertise on their own. This program is easy to use and will really make Watson the sidekick your business needs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hello, Watson: How AI actually learns how to think (Paid Content by IBM)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The way IBM have trained Watson is as impressive as the technology itself. Watson is trained by real, live human beings. This allows it to learn not just general knowledge, but also the deep-cut things about the areas it needs to be an expert in.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
how technology is improving education in rural china

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How technology is improving education in rural China

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How technology is improving education in rural China.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Artificial intelligence (AI) will fundamentally change the nature of teaching in future and will require a radical rethink of the role of teachers in the process.

This was one of the key findings of a panel discussion entitled "AI and VR: Next giant leap for education?" at the World Innovation Summit for Education in Doha earlier this month.

Jingfang Hao, a science fiction novelist and founder of WePlan, an app that helps Chinese citizens to get the most out of their 'phone plans, said she believed AI would have a positive impact on education as it would help usher in a more personalised approach to learning. She explained:

AI can analyse learners' cognitive and knowledge levels and provide personalised lessons going at the right speed for each individual. Teachers can then set up creative workshops to support this learning and organise studies so they're based on cooperative teamwork.

Another problem the technology could help solve is how to deal cost-effectively with rising numbers of learners entering the education system. Joerg Draeger, an executive board member of the Bertelsmann Foundation in Germany, pointed out:

Education is becoming a mass issue as more people want it around the world. But with that growing mass, there's also growing heterogeneity. It's hard for teachers to deal with diversity and mass at the same time and heterogeneity is very expensive so education is becoming more costly. For example, even though students are studying the same things, US studies show that costs are 2.3 times higher now than in the 1970s because class sizes are smaller and more diverse. So the old analogue systems are coming to their limits and AI helps them scale.

In countries such as China, where access to good schools and teachers tends to be limited to urban areas, AI is also seen as a possible means of helping to boost educational attainment in rural districts. Yao Zheng, founder and chief executive of RoboTerra, which provides kits for 10 to 18 year old Chinese learners to build their own robots and learn how to code, explained:

The most exciting thing is if AI teachers can be used to help humans know what they don't know. Most professions focus on their own areas like math or languages, but it's difficult for teachers, especially in rural areas, as they're supposed to be expert in everything. So AI has a role to play in providing fact- and knowledge-based learning and the human teacher can moderate those activities in the classroom.

China's AI strategy

A key problem when such technology has been implemented in rural districts to date, however, is that few teachers or students understand how to use it. This "cognition gap" means there is "still quite a long way to go", Zheng warned.

Nonetheless, China is taking the adoption of AI in the education sphere very seriously. The sector already boasts numerous start-ups such as Master Learner, an online system that marks homework and tests. According to research firm IT Juzi, the market is also ranked third behind only medicine and automobiles as having experienced the most change as a result of the technology.

And such rankings are not just idle vanity - a government plan released by China's State Council in July revealed that AI-enabled education is now part of the national strategy. It is, in fact, a key element of a wider development roadmap that aims to make the country a global centre of AI innovation worth $150 billion by 2030.

But such ambitions and enthusiasm are potentially worrying for the West due to the competitive advantage that AI could afford the workforce of the future - even if China does still has a long way to go to achieve its goals. As Bertlesmann's Draeger puts it:

To compete in the twenty-first century, we need twenty-first century tools.

By way of contrast with the Chinese attitude though, more developed countries see AI largely as a threat that could lead to potentially devastating job losses, including those belonging to educators. But RoboTerra's Zheng believes that, although the technology will undoubtedly change the role of teachers, it will far from eliminate them. Instead she is certain that they will remain as important as ever. She explained:

The teacher has to be at the centre - they're not replaceable. In fact, they'll have more time for personal interaction with students...Teachers will help learners in the social and emotional dimension of their development and AI will help teachers to evaluate their students more effectively. So it'll be important to rethink the teacher role, and teaching training will need to change too.

Re-thinking the teacher's role

Bertlesmann's Draeger agreed. While about 80% of a teacher's day is currently spent on transferring knowledge and 20% on catering to their emotional requirements, the balance could end up shifting the other way. As he pointed out:

If you ask a teacher why they chose their job, they say it's because they wanted to teach children and build a relationship with them. So if technology is used to help teachers deal with the emotional side of things, AI could open up the time they need to spend on relationships and the things that matter.

But the things that matter into the future will not necessarily be traditional academic skills, which "are no longer enough", according to Saku Tuominen, founder of HundrEd, a Finnish organisation that is researching global innovation in education and disseminating best practice.

Instead today's academic focus must be supplemented by developing soft skills such as problem-solving, empathy, curiosity and collaboration to help create a 'growth mindset' and complement the work of machines that are likely to take over more mundane, repetitive tasks. Tuominen explained:

We should be teaching academic, life, thinking and doing skills...We need to focus on teaching students to be smart in life not just in their grades, which means teaching them to ask questions and solve problems. Many of the jobs available now didn't exist when I was in school and people have ended up in them because they were hobbies that became jobs. So we need to change education to make learners better prepared - and if they're curious and can think critically, they'll be in much better shape for the future.

Dr Amal Al-Malki, founding dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar, agreed. But she also believes that the time is now right to start looking at how to foster "digital intelligence" too. She concludes:

We need to teach children to love learning and to carry that on throughout their lives. But we also need to start teaching children how to behave ethically both as individuals and in the digital world around them. It's about grounding ethics into a technological context.

My take

Although the West may be shying away from adopting AI in an educational context, China is betting its future on the technology as a way to solve key challenges. These include how to provide quality education to 188 million school children in a cost-effective fashion, particularly in rural areas that have traditionally been under-resourced and under-served.

This situation, combined with the country's enthusiasm for technology of all types, has the potential to put the western workforce of the future at a competitive disadvantage if ways are not found to grasp the nettle and use AI, not to destroy teaching jobs, but to supplement and enhance them.
Image credit - Pinterest

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Classroom robots - China's educational gambit poses questions for the West - diginomica government

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Artificial intelligence (AI) will fundamentally change the nature of teaching in future and will require a radical rethink of the role of teachers in the process. This was one of the key findings of a panel discussion entitled "AI and VR: Next giant leap for education?"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Development of a Teaching Model for STEAM Using R-Learning Educat...: Ingenta Connect

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The purpose of this study was to develop a teaching model for STEAM using R-Learning educational robot to promote the creative problem solving ability of young children. The STEAM teaching model using this educational robot (IRobi Q) is designed to integrate the system in which the contents of math, science, engineering, technology, and art, interaction, mobility, and relationship function are utilized.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Educational Robotics intervention on Executive Functions in preschool children: A pilot study

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Educational Robotics (ER) is known for its effects on academic achievement and scientific concepts. Few studies have demonstrated ER effects on cognit...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Comparative Study on the Educational Use of Home Robots for Children | Korea Science

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Comparative Study on the Educational Use of Home Robots for Children - Human-Computer Interaction;Human-Robot Interaction;e-Learning;Educational Media;r-Learning;Web-Based Instruction;

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
ERIC - The TangibleK Robotics Program: Applied Computational Thinking for Young Children, Early Childhood Research & Practice, 2010

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This article describes the TangibleK robotics program for young children. Based on over a decade of research, this program is grounded on the belief that teaching children about the human-made world, the realm of technology and engineering, is as important as teaching them about the natural world, numbers, and letters.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
对话，陈伟鸿，触摸硅谷，生存革命，疾病，生命科学

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
本期节目主要内容： 自人类出现以来，我们一直持续不断地在与疾病抗争，而近代的生命科学是我们与疾病斗争的重要武器。大数据等计算机技术的渗透，已经使得生命科学逐渐走进普通人的生活。商业化的生命科学会给我们带来哪些更多的帮助？敬请关注。 （《对话》 20180121 触摸硅谷 第三集 生存革命）

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
对话，陈伟鸿，触摸硅谷，机器大脑，机器人

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
本期节目主要内容： 谷歌研制了无人驾驶汽车，AlphaGo战胜了人类棋手，埃隆·马斯克造出了电动车和火箭。硅谷的科技创新好像从来没有停止带给我们惊喜。本期节目将继续带你在硅谷感受科技创新的力量。更多精彩，敬请关注。 （《对话》 20180114 触摸硅谷 第二集 机器大脑）

# data[].attributes.headline
《对话》触摸硅谷 第一集

# data[].attributes.body
《对话》触摸硅谷 第一集

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
对话，陈伟鸿，乔布斯故居，硅谷，机器人，人工智能

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
本期节目主要内容： 一百多年来，硅谷培养了50多位诺贝尔奖获得者、并代表科技创新前沿，如今的硅谷已经成为创业者科研的新生势力，我们将让这些"硅谷牛人"带领我们打开未来世界之门。 （《对话》 20180107 触摸硅谷 第一集 万物感知）

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
物灵新闻_物灵科技_人机共生，万物有灵_Ling.AI

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
物灵新闻，第一时间，获取关于物灵科技最新资讯，包括新产品发布，企业新闻以及最新活动等众多内容。

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The way IBM have trained Watson is as impressive as the technology itself.

Watson is trained by real, live human beings. This allows it to learn not just general knowledge, but also the deep-cut things about the areas it needs to be an expert in.

The human teachers give Watson a very large amount of data that is clearly labeled. Then these experts go through the information with Watson and refine the output, helping it to make sense of what it's learning.

By going through many cycles of input, output, and preening, Watson can start to make sense of what it's seeing on its own.

Yet many fear the training of AI systems are open for bias based on the information being fed and the individuals training the systems. IBM believes that AI actually provides the means for bias to be mitigated or even engineered out of systems. When AI systems demonstrate inherent biases, they are reflecting the data that people give them.

They are confirming - and making visible - bias that already exists. Researchers at IBM believe such bias can be algorithmically detected and corrected and are working with organisations to ensure their AI strategies seek to mitigate bias. This area of research is absolutely critical to trust and transparency of AI.

This is why Watson, and AI in general, can never replace people, as some have questioned as the tech has developed. Watson works best as a tool for people, and learns better through the collaboration of man and machine.

For example, Watson learned how to understand casual dialects and interpret tone with Natural Language Understanding and Tone Analyser, respectively, which is useful in education settings when a language translator is needed. There's also a Watson Virtual Assistant that can act as a chatbot for businesses, which can aid in things like customer support and even banking.

Possibly most important is Watson Knowledge Studio. This program allows people to train Watson in specific industries or areas of expertise on their own. This program is easy to use and will really make Watson the sidekick your business needs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hello, Watson: How AI actually learns how to think (Paid Content by IBM)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The way IBM have trained Watson is as impressive as the technology itself. Watson is trained by real, live human beings. This allows it to learn not just general knowledge, but also the deep-cut things about the areas it needs to be an expert in.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This is the second in a series of articles about young entrepreneurs embracing technology to start innovative businesses around China. You can find the first here.
On a recent Saturday evening on the outskirts of Shenzhen, in southern China's Guangdong province, Aelos the robot was showing off his dance moves as he bopped to the beat of "Gangnam Style."

Named after the Greek god of wind, the charismatic, pint-sized robot - which measures 34.6 centimeters in height and weighs 1.8 kilograms - is the brainchild of Leng Xiaokun and a small team of students-turned-entrepreneurs.

Leng Xiaokun poses for a photo with Aelos, his company's humanoid robot. Courtesy of Leju (Shenzhen) Robotics

Leng is the founder and chairman of Leju (Shenzhen) Robotics Co. Ltd., a recently established company that is betting on a time in the near future when machines like Aelos are common in homes around the world.

"One day, robots will play an essential role in people's lives, in much the same way that smartphones are indispensable to us today," Leng predicts.

Leng is not alone in his optimism. Both around the world and in China, entrepreneurs are elbowing in for a slice of what is still an unproven market. While industrial robots are ubiquitous in factories and workshops, nonindustrial or service robots are still trying to win mass-market appeal. About 5.4 million service robots for personal and domestic use were sold globally in 2015, generating sales of $2.2 billion, up 4 percent from the previous year, according to data from industry group the International Federation of Robotics.

But within the service robot category, humanoid models like Aelos, which often have heads, bodies, and movable limbs, are still a relatively small piece of the pie. The sector is largely dominated by foreign manufacturers like Aldebaran Robotics, the French company behind Nao, one of the world's best-known humanoid robots.

An advanced humanoid robot can perform everyday tasks in the workplace or at home. Currently available models have the ability to mimic human behavior, recognize objects and people, maintain a conversation, and even dance with the elderly at assisted living facilities.

Aelos, the product of seven months of development by Leng's company, is designed primarily for educational and entertainment purposes, and is aimed at the children's market.

"It will be a good companion for children," Leng says. "If a kid begins to play with the robot at 5 or 6 years old, it will store all of their memories until they grow up," he adds, referring to Aelos' ability to record and participate in conversations.

Children play with Aelos robots at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center, Guangdong province, August 2016. From Leju's official Weibo account

Since the robot's launch in August, Leju has sold some 1,200 Aelos models, according to the company. The robot, which had a special launch price of 2,999 yuan ($430), currently retails in China for 3,999 yuan. Aelos has 16 humanlike joints and can perform difficult actions like dancing, yoga, jumping, and gymnastics. It can also carry out various voice functions, such as language interpretation, and users can control it remotely using their smartphones.

Leng traces his interest in robotics back to his own childhood in eastern China's Shandong province. His favorite hobby was taking things apart, from toy cars to computers, and then reassembling them from their individual components. However, Leng didn't see his first robot in a laboratory until he attended a class in high school. "It was a humanlike robot, different from any toys I had ever played with before," he recalls.

Though he was only auditing the lessons at first, Leng soon stood out among his classmates and was picked by his teachers to lead the lab. "Maybe it's just because of my passion for robots," he says, "but even though I spent at least four hours in the lab studying the robots every day, I never felt tired."

Leng was also selected to attend various robotics contests, and after winning a silver medal at a national competition, he was admitted to Harbin Institute of Technology without having to take the , China's intensely competitive national college entrance examination.

Located in northeastern Heilongjiang province, Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) is one of China's pioneering research institutions for robotics, and its laboratory is one of the earliest of its kind. It was credited with developing China's first spot-welding robot in 1986.

Leng soon noticed that the majority of robotics hardware used in Chinese labs was purchased from foreign countries such as South Korea and France. "The demand by university labs for robots was huge, but since there were not many choices at home, they had to pay tens of thousands of yuan to import from overseas," Leng says. "After we developed our first prototype, we thought, 'Why don't we just make our own robots instead?'"

Leng and his team first provided prototypes to students to test the waters, but these low-cost robots also appealed to other university labs, and so they began to receive a growing number of orders.

In January 2012, Leng and his teammates even brought their robots onto China's most prominent stage: the annual Spring Festival Gala on state broadcaster CCTV. The two-minute performance featured four robots playing drums and six dancing - once again, to the sounds of Korean pop mega-hit "Gangnam Style."

Robots designed at the Harbin Institute of Technology 'perform' during CCTV's annual Spring Festival Gala in Beijing, Jan. 22, 2012. VCG

Their company, Leju, was established in October 2015 in Harbin, after garnering 30,000 yuan in subsidies from the university and investment of around 2 million yuan from the founders themselves. The three men - Leng, Chang Lin, and An Ziwei - recruited 25 students, mostly from the university's master's and doctoral programs, to staff the company, and Leng helped the university launch a dedicated robotics club.

Today, 23-year-old Leng leads a team of more than 40 employees while continuing his doctoral studies at HIT. Leju's research and development team has remained at the university, though production takes place at a factory in Zhuji, in eastern China's Zhejiang province. That production line has capacity to produce up to 150 robots per day.

The team moved its headquarters to technology hub Shenzhen in March because the city "has a stronger entrepreneurial atmosphere and will help us to develop into a more standardized company," Leng says. Underlining the competitive race to build robots with wide appeal, Shenzhen is home to nearly 50 service robot-focused companies, according to Robohub, a nonprofit online robotics community.

Investors, too, are jumping on board, with global market research firm CB Insights estimating that the total volume of global investment in robot startups increased by 115 percent to $1.4 billion from 2014 to 2015. "The capital market has been a bit crazy and continues to burn through money, despite the fact that humanoid robot technology is still immature," Leng says.

In March, Leju received 10 million yuan from venture capitalists. Then in July, UBTech Robotics, a Shenzhen-based rival, raised $100 million.

Still, the buying public appears skeptical, partly because of the disconnect between what consumers think a robot should be able to do and what they actually can do. "Some film-lovers who think robots can do everything might be disappointed to find that the technology still lags far behind their expectations," says Ke Zhendong, Leju's chief product officer.

But there are signals that demand might soon begin to take off. According to a white paper on educational robots issued by Beijing Normal University in September, the global scale of the educational robot market is predicted to grow to $11.1 billion dollars by 2021, from $1.8 billion dollars in 2016.

In China, the market for children's products has also seen a boost following both the introduction of the two-child policy and a shift in consumption habits of young parents born after the 1980s. Even so, while some parents appear to be warming to the prospect of using robots for educational purposes, there is no guarantee that they would be willing to pay top dollar for that privilege.

Xu Wen, a 37-year-old mother from Shanghai, says she has bought dozens of Lego toy sets for her 10-year-old son over the years to help boost his IQ. "For robots, I prefer those educational ones that can develop my son's intelligence," Xu says. She's got her eye on a newly launched "robot" from Chinese electronics brand Xiaomi that costs a fraction of the price of Aelos.

Leju's Ke says convincing parents that robots can be toys as well as educational tools is crucial, and his colleague Leng is confident he knows what it takes to achieve this. "Since I began playing with robots as a teenager, I've understood what kids need," Leng says. "I want to show them what smart humanoid robots are, as well as how they are different from other toys."

For now, though, Leng is just hoping to use Aelos to get a foothold in the market, he says, adding that the company plans to launch the Aelos II, a more powerful humanoid service robot, next July. The new generation, which Leng expects to price at around 15,000 yuan, will have additional functions such as controlling home appliances and monitoring human health.
This story has been updated to give the current price of the Aelos robot. (Header image: One of the promotional photos for Aelos. From Leju's official Weibo account)
But Leng admits that the road to success for his Chinese company may first lead through international markets. "We'd love to test the waters in the United States," he says, "as we've found that American consumers seem to be more accepting of humanoid robots."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Robot Wants to Be More Than New Kid on Block

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This is the second in a series of articles about young entrepreneurs embracing technology to start innovative businesses around China. You can find the first here. On a recent Saturday evening on the outskirts of Shenzhen, in southern China's Guangdong province, Aelos the robot was showing off his dance moves as he bopped to the beat of "Gangnam Style."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lü Weibin's smiley 4-year-old has a new favorite playmate. But there's a catch: His companion isn't human.

Lü moved to Shanghai in 2014 from his hometown in central China's Henan province, one of the country's poorer provinces, to work at an app development company. A year later, his wife joined him, leaving their son back in Henan with his grandparents. Living some 800 kilometers away is not an ideal situation, says Lü, but it's a necessary compromise to give the whole family a better life.

Because he's only able to visit his son around six times a year, Lü spends generously on whatever he thinks will help the boy's intellectual development - from cheap toys and storybooks to a 1,200-yuan ($180) robot playmate named Ledi, who's powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

Around the same height as a Barbie doll, the brightly colored, airplane-shaped Ledi is not your typical toy. Ledi, manufactured by Beijing tech startup Turing Robot, is well-versed in poetry, basic math, and Chinese fairytales - in other words, it has the intelligence of a well-educated 12-year-old, according to the company's CEO, Guo Jia. Ledi's smarts are thanks to AI, which allows the robot to respond to children's speech.

One thing Ledi won't do is swear, according to Guo. "We want to build wholesome technology for children without vulgar and dangerous content," he explains. The company - named for English computer scientist Alan Turing, who developed a test for machine intelligence in 1950 - launched Ledi in 2015 as an "older cousin" for young children to play with. In the past year, Guo claims they've sold over 100,000 robots priced at 1,198 yuan each - and he expects sales to be even higher next year.

There is no data on the number of education robots currently on the market, but China's AI industry is growing fast. The education and companion robot sector could be worth 3.75 billion yuan in 2019, according to Feng Chao, an analyst with internet consultancy Analysys. Feng expects the market for AI education robots - which are already being used by thousands of Chinese families and even some schools - to grow and potentially revolutionize the way Chinese children learn, both in the classroom and at home.

While there's a similar level of enthusiasm for education robots in the U.S., the Chinese market is unique. Robots like Ledi are expected to take off in China due to factors like the poor quality of education among its large rural population, a rising birth rate, and a keenness from consumers to spend on anything and everything that could help children excel in school. In contrast, says Feng, American consumers are more willing to shell out for high-tech products in general, not just those that will help children succeed academically.

In 2015, the Chinese government relaxed its one-child policy nationwide, allowing couples to have two children. As a growing number of families take advantage of the policy change - 7.9 percent more babies were born last year compared with the year before - there's even greater market potential for child companion robots, Feng says. She adds that these children will be raised by the millennial generation, who tend to be more generous spenders compared with older generations.

But it's not just families who are welcoming AI educators. In Suzhou, a blossoming tech hub in eastern China's Jiangsu province, teachers at Shunhu Kindergarten work alongside 1-meter-tall humanoid robots called iPal, powered by AI.

When Sixth Tone visited a classroom earlier this month, Wang Lan, a teacher with 19 years of experience, was busy gathering 30 preschoolers and their parents for a dance party. In the center of the group, a smooth, white robot with glowing purple eyes broadcast a catchy, upbeat number well-known in China. The kids swarmed around it, mimicking their robot teacher's every move.

Education robot iPal raises its arms in a classroom at Shunhu Kindergarten in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, Dec. 6, 2017. Shi Yangkun/Sixth Tone

In time with the beat, the robot - from Nanjing-headquartered manufacturer AvatarMind and priced at nearly 8,700 yuan - can raise its arms and wave them in the air. At other times, it bends its knees or spins around. One of iPal's eyes contains a camera that captures its surroundings, allowing the kids to see themselves dancing in real time on a screen embedded in its chest.

But the robots can do more than just dance. Each lunch break, they are wheeled into the classroom to tell the children folk stories and ask follow-up questions in their childlike voices to test the students' listening comprehension. In the future, iPal will be able to recognize children's emotions by analyzing their facial expressions and gestures, the company claims.

Wang is grateful for the classroom robot: It helps get the children interested in the curriculum and allows her to spend more time actually teaching instead of trying to keep her young charges focused.

At the moment, the iPal robot is more of an assistant than an educator - but in the future, similar technology could bring about the end of the current teaching system, says Ma Liang, a senior consultant from government-affiliated nonprofit Chinese Institute of Electronics. Students may one day be able to stay home and get all the education they need by merely interacting with AI systems in a computer that can customize teaching to their needs - a significant change for China, where homeschooling is currently illegal.

Wang Kaifeng, a senior investment manager focusing on education at Blue Elephant Capital, agrees that education robots could have a major impact on the Chinese school system. Currently, AI-backed education technology is mostly used to assist teachers by distributing textbooks or supervising kids in class. But Wang Kaifeng - of no relation to teacher Wang Lan - thinks the technology in development is promising enough to take on the teaching aspect of education as well.

This could be a game changer in rural areas, according to Wang Kaifeng. China has around 34,000 rural primary schools with fewer than 10 students, according to a China rural education development report published by the National Bureau of Statistics. In remote schools, there might be only one teacher to educate a dozen students on a range of subjects, Wang Kaifeng says; in cases like these, AI could save the day. Wang Kaifeng describes a future where each student learns on a tablet using courses tailored to their individual needs through AI technology. In Wang Kaifeng's vision, the teacher's role in the classroom would become less about educating and more about solving minor tech issues.

Although schools and parents might be ready for educational AI, the robots themselves seem unprepared. This year, domestic tech startups have struggled to finance children's education robots. The market began cooling in the second half of last year, when the number of projects receiving financing each month slipped by more than 50 percent between July and December, Wang Kaifeng tells Sixth Tone.

Education robot iPal stands in the corner of a classroom at Shunhu Kindergarten in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, Dec. 6, 2017. Shi Yangkun/Sixth Tone

Investors are being put off because most child companion robots still don't meet customers' needs or expectations, according to analyst Feng. Some robots can't understand children's simple sentences, let alone carry on a more advanced conversation with an adult. Naturally, she adds, parents are unwilling to pay thousands of yuan for a robot that isn't much smarter than a hundred-yuan electronic storybook.

But underdeveloped technology isn't the only concern. "It's insane to let your kids be taught only by a robot," says Xiong Bingqi, deputy dean of the nonprofit 21st Century Education Research Institute. Xiong stresses that, aside from passing on knowledge, a teacher should look out for students' mental health and emotional well-being and guide them in developing strong social and communication skills - tasks that can't be accomplished by a robot teacher, he says.

In fact, the education robot craze could negatively impact children's mental health, according to child psychologist Xu Qian. The rise of companion robots could lead to parents spending less time with their kids, says Xu, but these robots can't meet the emotional needs of a young child. "If parents relinquish their obligation to spend time with their children," she says, "the children will feel abandoned."

Fellow child psychologist Sun Aijun tells Sixth Tone that long-term use of robots could damage children's social skills and cause them to develop a more rigid way of thinking. Kids aged between 2 and 6 are particularly vulnerable, as this is a crucial period for social development, Sun says.

But for now, Lü's son seems perfectly happy to spend time with his robot-turned-playmate. In a video Lü showed Sixth Tone, the little boy cheerfully plays a math game with his robot companion, Ledi. "One plus five is?" the boy asks in clear Mandarin. "Six," Ledi immediately responds in its monotone voice, prompting the little boy's face to break into a wide smile.
Editor: Julia Hollingsworth. (Header image: Zhang Zeqin for Sixth Tone)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How AI Could Teach Chinese Kids Their ABCs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Lü Weibin's smiley 4-year-old has a new favorite playmate. But there's a catch: His companion isn't human. Lü moved to Shanghai in 2014 from his hometown in central China's Henan province, one of the country's poorer provinces, to work at an app development company.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kai-fu Lee: AI bubbles to burst by end of 2018

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Would you let owl bot read to your kids?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A robot that can read any of 50,000 picture books to young children will soon launch.