AI revolutionizes education: from uniformity to personalized learning, says national political adviser

The integration of artificial intelligence has "pressed the fast-forward button" for the transformation of education, moving away from a one-size-fits-all model towards a future of personalized growth, according to a leading academic and national political adviser.

Xu Kun, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and president of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, emphasized the profound shift AI is bringing to both learning and teaching.

From the learner's perspective, AI is fundamentally altering the pace of study, Xu said on the sidelines of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress on Wednesday. Traditional, uniform teaching schedules often fail to accommodate individual differences. Now, AI can monitor a student's progress in real-time and dynamically adjust their learning path and content, he said.

Xu illustrated this with the intelligent tutoring platform developed by BUPT. "When a student encounters a difficult problem, the platform doesn't just provide the answer," he explained. "Like an experienced teacher, it guides and inspires the student step-by-step based on their cognitive level, helping them explore and solve the problem independently."

AI is reshaping the role of educators, liberating them from repetitive tasks so they can focus more on the essence of mentoring, he said.

However, the BUPT president acknowledged that AI is a "double-edged sword". He stressed the importance of adhering to positive and ethical principles, guiding students to use AI reasonably and moderately to prevent the development of "mental laziness".

Looking to the future, Xu said AI is creating an open, shared, and integrated growth space that blends the virtual and real, is driven by data, and features human-machine collaboration.

High-quality educational resources, unbound by time and space, will be channeled through an intelligent education network to every student, truly empowering their holistic development in the AI era, he added.