This illustration is inspired by the use of artificial intelligence for personalized, interactive education.

Peking University, February 23, 2024: With the arrival of the energetic Year of the Loong, Peking University (PKU) unveiled a delightful surprise for the new semester – the grand entrance of the "Brainiac Buddy (BB)," a GPT-4-based AI teaching product created by Dong Bin, a Boya Distinguished Professor at PKU, in collaboration with his students and an off-campus tech company.

BB made its debut last semester in the class "Mathematical Methods in Image Processing" for a trial run and served as a guide for students to learn and a bridge for teachers to communicate. Possessing traits such as being "patient, smart, and hardworking," BB not only guided students through the labyrinth of knowledge but also bridged the communication gap between the students and their professors.

The login interface of BB

Following BB's launch, it garnered widespread attention from teachers, students, and community members both inside and outside the school. Engaging in interactive engineering with BB, Prof. Dong Bin and his team are on a mission to add a personal touch to teaching assistant services, promising to elevate the quality of education. Although BB is still in the “Trial-Feedback-Improvement” stage, it will apply and support more courses in the future.

The interface of BB for a course study

There is a deep mathematical mindset behind this AI teaching assistant. Prof. Dong, recognizing the logical reasoning prowess of GPT-4, saw an opportunity to enhance it with top-notch mathematical datasets. With the rise of ever-mighty base models like GPT-4, the stage is set for a spectacular show in interaction engineering.

The general framework of the multi-round PE/graphic from Dong Bin's team

Zhou Zhennan, an assistant professor at the Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research (BICMR), Peking University, commented that the experience of using large-scale language models exceeded his expectations, especially in question-and-answer sessions, where students were able to effectively supplement logic and language organization through multiple rounds of dialogue.

Overcoming the educational challenge of tailoring instruction to students' needs, Zhou added, allowed each student to interact with BB in a personalized and efficient manner.

The Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research

Liu Zihao, an undergrad at PKU responsible for the early back-end design of the BB project, reveals the secret behind it – BB's open-source data and vector knowledge base technology. This will provide more freedom for students to build their knowledge bases and further personalize their teaching assistance services.

Dong Bin's group discusses problems together; seen from left, Tang Yiming, Liu Zihao, Dong Bin, Zhou Zhennan, Shen Chengfeng, Luo Yifan

Despite BB's current limitations in math problem-solving, the team is excited about its future. They are committed to making BB more inspiring and providing more personalized teaching assistant services, as well as optimizing its memory function to remember each user's habits and preferences. 

Led by the AI assistant teacher "Brainiac Buddy," Peking University is exploring the future of personalized teaching, bringing new possibilities to the education field.

Written: Aden Tan
Edited by: Dennis Meng
Source: PKU Official WeChat