A lecturer replaced himself with an AI avatar. His students couldn’t tell the difference

When university lecturer Luke Rowe decided to replace his recorded online lecture with an AI-generated avatar of himself, he expected his students would notice immediately that something amiss.

Instead, most were unable to initially differentiate between the real recording and the avatar. And once they could, students said they preferred the AI version of Rowe to the real thing.

“I was eating humble pie, and I was sitting there going, ‘Why is that?’” the senior education researcher at Australian Catholic University said.

One reason was that the avatar had a smoother and deeper sounding voice than Rowe. There were other telltale signs that should have alerted students, but seemingly didn’t, at least not at first – hand gestures that misaligned with speech, and the eyes of the avatar being difficult to read, for example.

Before conducting the experiment with his class, which is itself focused on AI ethics, Rowe had to get approval from the university.

Though ACU said it has no plans to replace academics with AI avatars, the experiment was part of its aim to teach students about responsibly using tools they will find in the workforce.

Rowe said the avatar had plenty of benefits for personalising learning. Students can change the language it speaks in or speed up the cadence. From a teaching perspective, the AI avatar allows the researcher to edit and update lectures, keeping lessons up to date.

“Hopefully, my human judgment will exceed that of AI,” he said of delivering lectures himself.

“But if we’re talking of efficiency, no way; AI can absolutely do this more efficiently than I can.”

In recent years, a number of Australian universities have moved away from traditional hour-long lectures towards online mini-lectures.

However, educators are yet to understand the effect avatars will have on how students learn online and the trust they have in teachers, Rowe said.

“From a human perspective, students can smell a lack of authenticity a mile away,” he said. “And when you’re authentic, and you genuinely care about them, and you ask them how they’re going and care about how much they learn, they will enjoy it and engage more.”

Early research also suggests people need to master knowledge and skills with their own brain before they start to complement their thinking with AI.

University of Melbourne deputy vice chancellor of education Gregor Kennedy said the university was taking a balanced approach to introducing AI.