Northeastern University’s AI bot helps students with math

BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — A Northeastern University professor launched an AI program last month to help students with math while she was busy.

The bot is called Ada, inspired by the famous mathematician Ada Lovelace, and was developed by mathematics professor Abby Williams and two other contributors.

Ada was designed to be a “robo-TA” for one of Northeastern’s calculus courses.

“The basic idea is that when you ask a question, you get step-by-step solutions,” Professor Williams said. “It shows you what to do every step of the way.”

Ada was trained exclusively according to the course textbook. This allows students to ask the program questions about their coursework without fear that the bot will use false information from the internet, which is a key argument against many AI bots.

The professor also said that Ada can answer questions at any time of the day, which is a big plus for her personally.

“The nights before exams and tests, I get a lot of panicked emails between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.,” the professor said. “When my little ones were younger, I was awake answering these emails, but now I’m asleep.”

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She also said that the work in class was done with pen and paper, so the bot can only be used for learning and not cheating, another point that other AI programs are often accused of.

“I had incredibly positive feedback from my students, they really liked being able to use it as a resource,” said Professor Williams. “I would like to expand it to some of the other courses I teach.”

Ada is currently in the pilot phase, but the positive response from students means the professor will stick with it.

The professor also mentioned that researchers at the school have already started working on a similar AI bot for physics classes, which will be named Newton.

Chaiel Schaffel of WBZ NewsRadio (@CSchaffelWBZ) reported.