Richard Tong on education
From Diálogos con Líderes Chinos del Futuro - Richard Tong. Inteligencia artificial y educación. · · Fundación Consejo España China
“Traditional education cannot do what we call personalized education at scale, but AI can enable personalized education by automating and scaling individual attention to students.”
On , Richard Tong, Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Director at NV5 GLOBAL INC, spoke about education during Diálogos con Líderes Chinos del Futuro - Richard Tong. Inteligencia artificial y educación. on Fundación Consejo España China.
About Richard Tong
In a 2022 interview, Richard Tong discussed the potential of artificial intelligence in education. He stated that AI can enable personalized education at scale, a capability he said traditional classroom models lack due to their "factory-based" structure where the teacher sets a pace for the average student. Tong argued that AI deployment in education is easier than in medicine because the field tolerates mistakes more readily and has greater data availability for training models. He suggested that AI could deliver personalized instruction at a cost approaching that of electricity, allowing thousands of students to receive customized feedback simultaneously. Tong emphasized that AI is not intended to replace teachers but to reduce their "tedious and boring workloads," allowing them to focus on emotional and moral connections with students. He described a future where "super teachers" enhanced by AI could provide individualized diagnosis and attention at a reasonable cost, making high-quality education accessible beyond wealthy populations. Tong also noted that teachers would need new skills to work productively with AI, including understanding its recommendations and supervising corner cases. He stated that AI's greatest potential lies in bringing quality education to rural and less developed areas that lack good teachers and infrastructure.