July 13, 2007

If Machines Ran Academe

Score one for technology. After a voice actor mangled several names at last year's commencement, Marist College, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., recorded them this year and let the graduates listen in advance and correct any mispronunciations. The result was a pair of phonetically correct ceremonies with audience members none the wiser.

Which set us to wondering: What other tasks could colleges delegate to machines or other devices? A few possibilities:

Student-health bot: An abandoned