How much learning material can you retain? Juki is Professor Jürgen Handke's assistant at at Philips University of Marburg in Germany. Hanke is known as a digital teaching pioneer and one of the first professors to have a humanoid robot assistant.
The professor uses an interactive teaching approach, which is made possible by Yuki. Today a number of you will write back. It's Thursday just after 7am at Marburg University. Thursdays always start early for Jürgen Handke and Patrick Heinz.
This is Juki's workday and he needs to be woken up. I've tried this before. It's a one-way street.
Hmm. Ach, ist es denn schon wieder Zeit zu arbeiten? Ich hoffe doch, meine Studenten haben sich auf den heutigen Kurs vorbereitet.
Gleich werde ich mal ihr Wissen testen. Darauf freue ich mich schon. What's the time? It is 7.32.
Ah, okay, that's fine. He's ready now. Time to head to class. Juki needs help making the journey.
We need this push card to go anywhere. To help him get from A to B. Juki completed his test phase just a few weeks ago. Since then he's been working regularly at the university.
Patrick Heinz programs Juki. It is thanks to Heinz that Juki is always learning. It would be great if he could get to class by himself. That's still missing.
But even in the future that's going to be difficult, also because of the elevator. When the university first bought Yuki and two other robots for 20,000 euros, they couldn't do much. Now the 1.2 meter tall robot is more than a fancy gimmick for Professor Jürgen Huntke. Yuki's artificial intelligence is designed to help improve both teaching and learning.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome to our in-class meeting number 11. This is an English linguistics lecture. I will take my linguistics phonetics class. Oh, that's the wrong one. Did I? What?
What? We have the wrong session. We have the wrong session. It's linguistics and phonetics shows history of English.
Did Yuki make a mistake? I have no idea what went wrong. So it's this is whatever happens what always happens.
So if I go this. But if I click on linguistics and phonetics, it shows a history language question. Ah, there we are. So my mistake, my mistake. So here we are.
Are you ready? Here is the question for you. How many vowels does the word INCOMPREHENSIBLE contain? You got two minutes.
Yuki is asking practice exam questions. But students in Handke's classes aren't supposed to memorize material. Instead, they're instructed to use their tablets, mobiles and computers to find information online.
This trains skills and understanding rather than rote learning. You also wrote down eyes, that's perfect. We will write the full forms.
Wonderful. Hanke thinks teacher-centered education is inefficient. The professor prefers an interactive, multi-medial approach, which he can apply thanks to his assistant Juki. So just cross out that line and then you have the first solution.
It's really a big help. I can stay with them. and help them while the robot has an eye on things. I don't need to To do anything.
It's great. Before I'd have to run up and down the class, do the PowerPoint and the stopwatch. Now he handles all of that. The time is up.
The next question will come in a moment. Okay. Guess he's got it. It seems the technology works. But is it helping to reach the students?
When the robot is there, I can see the students. I feel I have to work a little bit harder when the robot is here. So yeah, I'd say it helps you learn.
And it's also motivating to have something like that standing in your classroom. I think you don't need Yuki per se. You could also just have a robot voice and online questions.
That would be the same for me. It just doesn't make a real difference to have a robot standing up there compared with having AI running in the background. And it doesn't really matter if it's running in the background. Juncker thinks Yuki's true potential is still in the developmental phase.
Right now, the assistant robot has a low-level AI. He wouldn't be able to give a proper interview, for example. Why did he have to go out? Because it's too loud in there for him to be able to understand. Were you satisfied with your students'performance today?
Did we have that question? I don't think so. Spontaneous questions? He can't answer spontaneous questions.
Juki can only answer questions we emailed to Patrick Heinz beforehand. What's next on your schedule? I will stop my speaking class soon.
Hopefully many students will come. I have your QR code. Hello, Robin. Keep the effort up.
You have completed everything. You have achieved an average score of 80%. Okay. Did you know that already? I didn't actually.
I knew I'd done all of my worksheets, but I didn't know I have 80%. I'm better than I thought. Find your degree program on the list and click on it. Yuki's consultation sessions are still in the test phase.
A researcher evaluates them. Starting next summer, Yuki will give regular consultations. Then it will become clear whether other students will also accept Yuki as a student advisor.
Do you understand why some people are frightened of robots? Absolut. Aber mit der Zeit werden wir uns aneinander gewöhnen. Wir können doch Freunde sein. Was he trying to take my hand?
I think he drew you a heart. Can humans and robots be friends? Some on campus aren't sure.
There are worries that the humanoid robot is likely to become more and more a competitor of humans. In the end, we won't be working anymore. He'll be doing our jobs.
What if after studying for five years, I work for five years in a bank and then get told, sorry, you have no more work here. We're hiring a robot to do your job. That doesn't sound so great. Hanke's team has heard those types of worries before. For now, Yuki is still a long way off from being able to compete with a human.
Here he's practicing for a trade fair. How human are you? Which ones? I have a head.
I can see that. Jürgen Huntke is a techie through and through. He's been experimenting with computers for decades.
Juki is helping him get closer to his vision of digital teaching. Why should there be robots at universities? Like what?
Ich kann den Lärmbegleitern neue Freirohren schaffen. What else? Ich kann eintönige Aufgaben übernehmen.
What else? Ich kann die Studierenden beraten. Ich denke, jetzt hast du genügend Größe gewählt. Ja. Erstes Obergeschoss.
Yuki is on his way to his last seminar for the day. It's a history of English class. So are you ready?
Have you got your smartphones ready? Alright. So here's the first question. Go to Pinkham and answer the survey.
Reply within 45 seconds. A study by the University of Würzburg found that Europeans have grown more wary of robots in recent years. If you have trouble in understanding these words, look them up in dictionaries. Do people here in Marburg also feel skeptical about Yuki? In the beginning, yes, for sure.
It was really weird at first, now he's been around for several sessions. Yeah, it's been this way for a year now. So we've gotten a bit more used to it, but it was definitely weird at first.
Professor Handke has plans for Jüki to take on more tasks. What I imagine in the future is that in a room like this one there would be a cupboard with a robot in it. I'd feed that robot instructions from my desk.
Then I'd come into the room to say hello, say, hey mate, how are you? Then it asked me what should I do today. You said I should quiz the students.
That I should do this and that. At that point I'd say OK or give him a pat. I feel like a cat.
And we'll be off. It's time for the final exam for this course. Did Yuki help the students learn?
I felt pretty confident solving the task Yuki posed. So in a way, he helped me relax. Around three quarters passed the exam, more than last year.
It's unclear whether Yuki played a role. We have one last question for the robot. Is the performance of your students satisfactory? Machines may be humanoid, but people will never be machines.
Yuki is on break till next Thursday. Then he'll be back at work, dehumanizing teaching or modernizing education.