Abstract
In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly integrated into education, reshaping traditional learning environments. Despite this, there has been limited investigation into fully operational artificial human lecturers. To the best of our knowledge, our paper presents the world’s first study examining their deployment in a real-world educational setting. Specifically, we investigate the use of “digital teachers,” AI-powered virtual lecturers, in a postgraduate course at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Our study explores how features such as appearance, non-verbal cues, voice, and verbal expression impact students’ learning experiences. Findings suggest that students highly value naturalness, authenticity, and interactivity in digital teachers, highlighting areas for improvement, such as increased responsiveness, personalized avatars, and integration with larger learning platforms. We conclude that digital teachers have significant potential to enhance education by providing a more flexible, engaging, personalized, and accessible learning experience for students.
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Notes
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Protocol number: HREP-2024-0018.
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Acknowledgments
We sincerely thank the Guangzhou Municipal Nansha District Science and Technology Bureau for their support under Contract No. 2022ZD012. We also appreciate the funding from the HSBC project L0562, enabling us to explore the integration of digital humans in various applications. Special thanks to my labmates, Clarence Cheung and James Zhu, for their invaluable assistance throughout the class and prepation.
We acknowledge the financial support from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Education University of Hong Kong Joint Centre for Artificial Intelligence (JC AI) under project ID FB451. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the students who participated in our research, providing meaningful feedback has been essential in shaping our findings.
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Pang, C.C., Zhao, Y., Yin, Z., Sun, J., Hadi Mogavi, R., Hui, P. (2025). Artificial Human Lecturers: Initial Findings from Asia’s First AI Lecturers in Class to Promote Innovation in Education. In: Smith, B.K., Borge, M. (eds) Learning and Collaboration Technologies. HCII 2025. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15807. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-93567-1_8
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