In January 2020, Ofqual invited schools to submit student essays for a research project to explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in exam marking. In the accompanying blog, the exam regulator reassured teachers and pupils this was just a preliminary test and: “We wouldn’t suddenly see AI being used at scale in marking high-profile qualifications overnight.”
Just seven months later, prime minister Boris Johnson was blaming a “mutant algorithm” for an exam fiasco that saw more than 40 per cent of A-level students in England get downgraded, including many high achievers from disadvantaged backgrounds. That led to the AI marking study being put on hold.
This despite the A-level algorithm being based on statistical methods rather than AI, not to mention it was trying to achieve the impossible by generating exam results without there being any exams.