AI language tutors

Takako Aikawa and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology team spent three years building an AI tutor to help students with Japanese writing skills. They halted the project in 2020 during the pandemic, but their goal got an unexpected boost two years later when OpenAI launched ChatGPT.

“ChatGPT just did everything that we wanted to do,” said Aikawa, a senior lecturer in Japanese at MIT and project lead. “It was sad; we spent a lot of hours and many years of work on it, but it was also happy because it just did everything we wanted to do.”

Aikawa and many foreign language professors across the nation view the emergence—and constant reiterations—of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools as possible launch pads for their subjects:
  • Boosting interest from students, 
  • Improving skills earlier on and 
  • Advancing the evolution of language learning.
“AI can only take you so far,” [Kevin] Gaugler said. “I don’t think it can help you propose to someone, or seal the deal on the business transaction without understanding the culture and other language nuances.”

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