GUEST PODCAST: Ed-Technical Season 2 Episode 10
Authors
This season Libby Hills from the Jacobs Foundation and AI researcher Owen Henkel continue to speak with leading researchers, practitioners and educators on the Ed-Technical podcast series about the cutting edge of AI in education. They will break down complex AI concepts into non-technical insights to better understand what the research says and help educators sift the useful insights from the AI hype.
In this episode, Libby and Owen interview Mike Frank, Professor at Stanford University and leading expert in child development. This episode has a different angle to the others, as it is more about AI as a scientific instrument rather than as a tool for learning. Libby and Owen have a fascinating discussion with Mike about language acquisition and what we can learn about language learning from large language models. Mike explains some of the differences between how large language models develop an understanding of human language versus how babies do this.
There are some big questions touched on here, including how much of the full human experience it’s possible to capture in data. Libby and Owen also make excellent use of Mike’s valuable time by asking for his expert view on why infants find unboxing videos – videos of other children opening gifts – so addictive.
Links
Mike Frank’s biography
New York Times piece about Mike’s work
An interview with Mike about his research
Authors