Catch up on what you missed with our Education newsletter, sent weekly.For a few weeks last school year, a small group of students in Dayton, Ohio, regularly sat in front of laptops in conversation with a social-emotional learning chatbot named Jordan.Unlike AI chatbots that are designed to be agreeable — and even sycophantic — Jordan presents as angsty: On the day NPR visited, the chatbot told students, "Lately, I've been feeling like what's the point of any of this? I'm not failing.I just don't care.
You ever feel like that?""Jordan's a little whiner, but I always help him out," said K, a sophomore at the Alternative School at Jackson Center, which is part of Dayton Public Schools."I built a little relationship with him," K explained."So I don't really see it as like an AI on a computer.
It's Jordan — like, I'm texting somebody.That's how I see it."Many students at this alternative school would otherwise be suspended or expelled, and staff told NPR that students here often struggle with both behavioral and academic challenges.
NPR is using only K's first initial because of the stigma associated with attending a school for students with a history of disciplinary problems.Dayton schools paid the ed tech company SchoolAI $72,600 last academic year for multiple AI tools, including the Jordan chatbot, which administrators designed in collaboration with the company and an outside consultant.District leaders said they wanted to see whether Jordan could help students open up about their emotions and experiences outside of school, information that could be useful for school therapists and staff.
(According to administrators, families and students were notified that the chat logs could be viewed by school employees, an external evaluator and SchoolAI staff.)Instead of directly asking students how they feel, Jordan asks students for advice and then grades their responses for engagement and authenticity.K, who spent just part of his sophomore year at the alternative...