Can AI help “smooth over” discussion on abortion, racism, immigration, or Israel-Palestine? Columbia University sure hopes so.
Sway places an “AI Guide” in every chat that “asks tough questions to improve student reasoning.” The tool also “suggests a rephrasing” for language it deems disrespectful. One example debate topic laid out in Sway’s
intro video: whether or not the US “should prioritize Palestinian rights and stop sending weapons to Israel.”
Sway’s Cullen has said publicly that the tool is tied to the US intelligence community when it comes to part of its funding and research. Sway also received recent funding from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Snyder Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Tools Competition, and Carnegie Mellon University itself, DiBella said.
DiBella said that Sway will share anonymized data with the public and the intelligence community, but not transcripts or specifics. “All the data that we share is public, so there’s not any specific data-sharing pipeline with the intelligence community,” he said.
He also said that though the company does not share student transcripts nor answers with instructors, it does share with them each student’s score on a five-question “understanding quiz” they take after participating in a discussion, which gauges how well they understood the logic of the discussion.
“After having these discussions, students do become less confident in their own views,” he said, adding, “They’re getting closer to each other. They’re becoming more malleable. That’s actually why we used the word ‘sway’ ... We want their opinions to be more malleable to allow for the capability of changing your mind.”
The potential Sway partnership is not the only way Columbia is reportedly using tech to screen or shape students’ convictions. The university is also
reportedly using Schoolhouse Dialogues, a tool offered by Sal Khan of Khan Academy’s nonprofit, to pair high school students with opposite viewpoints on controversial topics, then rank each other’s “civility” — and Columbia could use that feedback in its admissions decisions.
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