A new assistant is coming to help students with mathematics. It is called SIGMA CAST and it is a podcast (in Czech language) created by artificial intelligence. It draws on the documents of the Institute of Mathematics of the Faculty of Mathematics, which is behind the project. In addition to the AI podcast, a mathematical chatbot is also in the works.
The first published episodes of SIGMA CAST are already available to students. They are structured according to the subject Mathematics 1, which almost every student at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering must go through. However, mathematical topics apply in any field, so a podcast can also be a useful tool for students from other faculties or universities. Episodes are available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
But before the AI moderator "spoke" for the first time, it cost the mathematicians of FSI a lot of work. "The first step is to collect the materials and structure them somehow, which was probably the most challenging part. For the aforementioned Mathematics 1 alone, we have an estimated eight hundred files full of materials. Then, the artificial intelligence will handle the content itself," says doctoral student Pavel Mikuláček, who is in charge of creating the podcast. When generating individual parts, AI draws on a database that contains scripts, as well as preparations, presentations, and other materials from various teachers of the Department of Mathematics.
"We had to learn how to prompt the AI well, for example, to pronounce mathematical notations and symbols correctly. And of course, control and some iteration are necessary; sometimes we find factual errors, and then we have to redo the whole podcast," explains Mikuláček. The AI uses the Google NotebookLM model for generation, which does not yet allow you to correct only selected parts of the podcast, so in the event of a major error, you need to generate the entire ten-minute episode again.
Individual parts will be published gradually during the semester. "For Mathematics 1, which is taught according to scripts, each subchapter has its own podcast. It comes out to some 54 podcasts, which will be gradually administered in doses. In addition, the math is the same whether you are studying at the Faculty of Civil Engineering or the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Therefore, the podcast has an overlap and can be useful for students of other faculties of BUT or even other technical universities," Mikuláček believes.
Podcast Generation
"We started from the fact that podcasts are quite popular today. In addition, personal consultations with students are no longer working for us – today's students do not attend them and they are shy to talk to teachers so directly. That is why we have decided to introduce new ways of supporting students based on AI," says Petr Vašík, Director of the Department of Mathematics at the Faculty of Mathematics.
Currently, Mathematics 1 is being processed, a basic subject that all students at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering must go through in some form. "We also have materials for the subjects Probability and Statistics, Mathematics 2, 3, and 4... But we'll see how it will work for students at first," says Vašík, adding that the basic math course will be an acid test for SIGMA CAST.
Another student helper that is still under development is a mathematical chatbot. It should be deployed in the Discord environment, which is now widely used by students for joint consultations. "It would be advantageous in that they can consult with the chatbot, but at the same time they can also consult the result with their classmates on Discord," adds Vašík.
According to him, it is still true that it is necessary to apply one's own intelligence to artificial intelligence outputs. "The AI will read you the scripts, try to explain them somehow, or put them into context, but it is still often wrong, even if it only draws on our materials. You cannot rely one hundred percent on its outputs. It is still a tool, not the “central brain of humanity”. If a person does not understand what artificial intelligence is returning to them, it will very quickly become the road to hell. It is necessary to support a critical approach and critical thinking in students," warns Vašík.
However, the AI assistant has currently encountered the issue of computing power. "We don't yet know how much computing power we will need to run it. We are even negotiating with a commercial company to support us. In addition, students do not learn in a linear way, so to speak: first the activity is zero, and then the credit test comes, and there will be two thousand questions per day," adds Vašík on the technical question of putting the chatbot into operation.
At the same time, he hopes that the Institute's activity will be an inspiration for others. "I don't know of anything similar being planned at any other university. On the contrary, I believe that Czech universities are quite lagging behind in this area. At the same time, if you have good input materials, you can easily prepare support tools for a wide range of subjects or topics. We'll see how it works. Quite surprising things go viral, while reasonable things often lie idle, so it's hard to say what will come of it," concludes Vašík.