Some while ago I was reading a book about the future of universities in the digital age. One of its suggestions was that future institutions would be using ‘JITAITS’ – ‘just in time artificially intelligent tutors’. These ‘tutors’ would be advanced computer programs which would recognise questions from students and use algorithms to answer them. Even more advanced programs would detect problems a student was having online and intervene with appropriate actions. I was reminded of this by a recent announcement from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US that it had developed such a program for a course on – naturally –...