Plexa: Empowered AI Education
Author:
Kellan Guinn-Bailey ’27Co-Authors:
Faculty Mentor(s):
Chris Mitsch, Computer ScienceFunding Source:
NoneAbstract
AI in education is a hot topic, and for good reason. Professors and Universities are searching for the answers of how they can prepare their students for the future, but the tools available do not provide for their needs. Existing tools fall short in at least one of a few key ways: They are not pedagogically forward, they do not respect data provenance, they are expensive and opaque. Plexa provides educators with the ability to create highly customizable lesson plans for their students to use in a controlled environment, so that they may promote AI literacy and prepare their students for careers in specific disciplines and lives in the age of AI. Chats are restricted to lesson instances; no free form chats. This structure encourages accountable usage, and keeps the focus of the tool on pedagogy. The tool is local first: all data is stored on premise, with the ability to run models within the institution’s network, or outsource compute to any provider of their choice. Plexa will always be fully free, open-source, and permission-less-ly licensed so institutions can examine/modify the code and deploy their own versions without any license related headaches or paying a cent. With this framework, I present a new way forward for what AI education can look like.