For anything but paying teachers or other useful thinngs.
An A.I. platform named Ed was supposed to be an “educational friend” to half a million students in Los Angeles public schools. In typed chats, Ed would direct students toward academic and mental health resources, or tell parents whether their children had attended class that day, and provide their latest test scores. Ed would even be able to detect and respond to emotions such as hostility, happiness and sadness.
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Los Angeles agreed to pay a start-up company, AllHere, up to $6 million to develop Ed, a small part of the district’s $18 billion annual budget. But just two months after Mr. Carvalho’s April presentation at a glittery tech conference, AllHere’s founder and chief executive left her role, and the company furloughed most of its staff. AllHere posted on its website that the furloughs were because of “our current financial position.”
