Soon, it won’t be enough to just pay attention in class anymore — you’re going to have to look the part, too. Starting later this year, a business school in Paris will be implementing a new way to make sure its students are paying attention: artificial intelligence. The software, called Nestor, was created by a company called LCA Learning and presented at the United Nations last week, the Verge reports. It will be used to monitor students taking courses online by tapping into students’ webcams.
Using the webcams, Nestor will train in on students faces, scanning for times when a student might not be listening by monitoring eye movements. The software will then formulate quizzes based on what was being covered during the times the student might have zoned out. LCA founder Marcel Saucet says that any video taken of students won’t be saved, and the company will not sell user data. Nestor will also be able to make study recommendations and track students’ online behavior to help them better manage their time. Saucet also believes that this program could help teachers, because they’ll now be able to better tell which parts of their lessons are a snore, and which parts students are really engaging with.
If this technology doesn’t work, there’s always a robot arm coming out of the computer and slapping students to alertness as an alternative — an actual gag from Nestor’s demo video. Once you’re forcing students to act interested at all times, a robot slap to the face may actually be the more humane option.
