Where will all the flip-charts go? (Part 2) Training
Part 2 – Technology
Learning from a computer. Is this the future? E-learning and online-learning have been with us for many years. Soon, we will have opportunities to sit in virtual classrooms with virtual and augmented reality. Plug in and away we go. Perhaps one day, we will simply get an upload (as we saw in the film The Matrix).
Should that be ‘learning through a computer’ rather than ‘learning from a computer’? There is still a human designer of the training; the computer is simply the vehicle of learning. Not for long though! Soon, Artificial Intelligence will have developed to the point where training can be run by ‘chat-bots’. True AI is self-learning, usually by running millions of possible options until it discovers the optimum ‘solutions’. It can also adapt ‘how’ it is learning too, to speed the process up further.
Will this AI chatbot training be useful to us mortals? In many circumstances, the answer has got to be ‘yes’! If I can learn quickly the best way of doing something that gets the best results, then count me in!
Can anything (or everything) be taught by chatbots? Here’s the premise: if it can be ‘modelled’, it can be learnt and taught by AI. Even human behaviour can be modelled, and it is likely that, given time, AI will have a more complex understanding of human motivation and behaviour than we do now as humans!
What about style? With body language recognition and voice recognition, AI can pick up on the audience and with voice synthesis it can chat with any voice you choose. As AIs develop humour, it might even be quite a laugh! The chatbot will be happily at home in its virtual training room :0)
Of course, I will be out of a job… unless I sit in another room and pretend to be a chat-bot (and then will I have to start dreaming of electric sheep?)
Will we not want actual human-contact? I certainly would and would crave the ‘old days with the flipchart’ (or Power Point if you must) and being in the room with real people! But I may be alone in this (standing sadly by my vintage flipchart!)
I’m guessing that training will follow the social and working norms. If less people go to an office (and work with other people), expect more AI training. If, however, there is a continued desire for human contact… then may the flipchart always have a place in our hearts!
Click here to contact joe@imaginariumdev.com (and to find out more about Imaginarium in-house training).
To find out more about Imaginarium Learning & Development: www.imaginariumdev.com