Nottingham students created an AI clone of their professor – but say it can’t replace her

A university of Nottingham professor tasked her students with creating an avatar of her using AI. However, they do not believe it could replace her.

Elvira Perez Vallejos is a professor at UoN who recently ran an experiment using AI. A group of students were tasked with replicating her face and voice to deliver lectures, with the aim to test the boundaries and ethics of the technology.

Dr Perez told Nottingham Post: “The aim was to clone my persona as a professor of mental health and digital technologies, so they cloned my voice and the way I look and fed this persona with knowledge

“The aim was to test the boundaries of what’s ethically possible or allowed.”

The project took eight months and hundreds of hours of coding, which resulted in a software with the ability to answer a variety of questions.

Although the face is not entirely accurate, the voice is near-perfect, created by inputting hours of recorded lectures.

She said: “I think for the first attempt it’s fantastic. I’m really happy with the outcome”

Dr Elvira Perez

The technology could make education more accessible, but Dr Perez has reservations about the future. She does not align herself with bigger companies aiming to “move fast and break things” using the technology.

She said: “In theory it can allow access to education to more people 24/7 and can be adapted to different languages, but it obviously brings risks in terms of teachers having students with no contact with humans, only computer systems or digital tech that has nothing to do with human-to-human interaction which is so vital

“I think it’s sad that we’re moving to a system where AI is replacing that interaction. It’s beautiful to interact with your students. You learn from them and hopefully they learn from you

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“Students should have human tutors and interact with each other. This should never replace teachers but it can complement it very well.”

When asked if it could replace her, she said: “Maybe we don’t know but we’re being told constantly that AI is here to stay so if that’s true let’s do it responsibly and ethically so the citizens, the students, the people are the people that benefit not just big tech.”

Seb Green, a computer science student with a leading role in the project, said: “I thought it was a really interesting project but the ethics behind it were an issue. I don’t personally think this should be something that’s improved on because it will have more negative effects than positive

“When it worked that well I was very impressed. And it only took four hours of audio.”

However, he does not believe the technology would replace his real teacher.

“I think there’s still a long way until there’s something that’s as good as a real person. The only benefit would be that the university could reduce costs. I don’t think there’s any other benefit at all

“Maybe having a clone where you could ask questions after a lecture may be a useful tool.”