2024/05/17 by Karan Taneja, Taneja, Karan, Pratyusha Maiti +9 · 6 citations
Computer Science · #Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) #Computation and Language (cs.CL) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Machine Learning (cs.LG) #Online Learning and Analytics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2405.11070
openalex publication_date 2024/05/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Conversational AI agents often require extensive datasets for training that are not publicly released, are limited to social chit-chat or handling a specific domain, and may not be easily extended to accommodate the latest advances in AI technologies. This paper introduces Jill Watson, a conversational Virtual Teaching Assistant (VTA) leveraging the capabilities of ChatGPT. Jill Watson based on ChatGPT requires no prior training and uses a modular design to allow the integration of new APIs using a skill-based architecture inspired by XiaoIce. Jill Watson is also well-suited for intelligent textbooks as it can process and converse using multiple large documents. We exclusively utilize publicly available resources for reproducibility and extensibility. Comparative analysis shows that our system outperforms the legacy knowledge-based Jill Watson as well as the OpenAI Assistants service. We employ many safety measures that reduce instances of hallucinations and toxicity. The paper also includes real-world examples from a classroom setting that demonstrate different features of Jill Watson and its effectiveness.