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Teachers at this primary school in China
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know exactly when someone isn't paying attention.
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These headbands measure each student's level of concentration.
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The information is then directly sent to the teacher's computer and to parents.
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China has big plans to become a global leader in artificial intelligence.
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It has enabled a cashless economy,
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where people make purchases with their faces.
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A giant network of surveillance cameras with facial recognition
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helps police monitor citizens.
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Meanwhile, some schools offer glimpses
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of what the future of high tech education in the country might look like.
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Classrooms have robots that analyze students' health and engagement levels.
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Students wear uniforms with chips that track their locations.
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There are even surveillance cameras that monitor
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how often students check their phones or yawn during classes.
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These gadgets have alarmed Chinese netizens.
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But, schools say it wasn't hard for them getting parental consent to enroll kids
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into what is one of the worlds largest experiments in AI education.
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A program that's supposed to boost students' grades
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while also feeding powerful algorithms.
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The government has poured billions of dollars into the project,
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bringing together tech giants, start-ups and schools.
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We got exclusive access to a primary school a few hours outside of Shanghai
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to see firsthand how AI tech is being used in the classroom.
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For this fifth grade class,
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the day begins with putting on a brain wave sensing gadget.
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Students then practice meditating.
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The device is made in China and has three electrodes,
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two behind the ears and one on the forehead.
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These sensors pick up electrical signals sent by neurons in the brain.
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The neural data is then sent in real time to the teacher's computer,
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so while students are solving math problems,
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a teacher can quickly find out who's paying attention
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and who's not.
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A report is then generated that shows how well the class was paying attention.
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It even details each student's concentration level at 10 minute intervals.
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It's then sent to a chat group for parents.
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The reports are detailed,
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but whether these devices really work
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and what they exactly measure isn't as clear.
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We were curious if the headbands could actually measure concentration.
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So, one of our reporters tried on the device.
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This is a new technology with, still, fairly little research behind it.
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Theodore Zanto is a neural scientist
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at the University of California San Francisco.
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He was surprised to learn that this tech,
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called electroencephalography, also known as EEG,
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is being used in the classroom on children.
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It's usually used by doctors in hospitals and labs.
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EEG is very susceptible to artifacts
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and so, if you are itchy or just a little fidgety
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or the EEG wasn't setup properly,
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so that the electrodes didn't have a good contact, effects the signal.
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Despite the chances for false readings,
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teachers told us the headbands have forced students to become more disciplined.
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Teachers say the students now pay better attention during class
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and that has made them study harder and achieve higher scores.
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But, not all students are as enthusiastic.
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This fifth grader, whom we caught dozing off in class,
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told us his parents punish him for low attention scores
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and that kind of data adds a new kind of pressure for students.
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Companies we interviewed said
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the data can go to government funded research projects.
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We spoke to parents who were unclear about where the data ended up
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and they didn't seem to care too much.
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Zanto says, there's likely no privacy protection at all.
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The classroom is you're trying to make an assessment of an individual student,
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you really can't anatomize it.
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Experts and citizens alike are sounding alarms
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about various aspects of the country's huge push into artificial intelligence.
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These classrooms are laboratories for future generations
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and while these new tools may potentially help
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some two hundred million students raise their grades,
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just how this all works out won't be apparent
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until they become adult citizens.