Question 1

Did you actually replace yourself as a teacher with an AI clone?

Accepted Answer

_A teaching experiment reveals AI's limits in education._

I built one of the first online certificates, Designing and Building AI Solutions, where I replaced myself with an AI clone. The clone is public. It's now a no-code course where students can imagine business ideas and have the AI clone write the necessary code. We have a 24/7 teaching assistant. But did this mean I replaced myself as a teacher? Not even close. AI can summarize information, but it can't predict future trends. Teaching is more than just delivering knowledge. It's about understanding and evaluating AI trends to find the best ways to use AI for business.

— [Is AI Replacing Us — Good News For Knowledge Workers](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/01/22/is-ai-replacing-us-good-news-for-knowledge-workers/) · _Forbes_

Question 2

How can educators use AI clones to scale their teaching?

Accepted Answer

_Creating an AI version of yourself to teach online courses at scale._

> I created the Lutz-Clone, an AI version of myself designed to teach my online certificate about AI with eCornell. This clone looks like me, but more importantly, it contains my knowledge and teaching style.

Source: [AI In Education — Up-level Your Teaching With AI By Cloning Yourself](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/03/31/ai-in-educationup-level-your-teaching-with-ai-by-cloning-yourself/)

Question 3

How did online teaching create a more inclusive classroom?

Accepted Answer

_Pre-screening answers leveled the playing field for introverts and extroverts._

Traditional classrooms favored extroverts, but pre-screening answers and quizzes let everyone participate. I used multiple-choice questionnaires and a Google Spreadsheet where students outlined discussion answers in one to two sentences. I could follow live and pick the most interesting answers to discuss in class. This pre-screening of arguments worked extremely well to create robust class discussion outcomes, giving all students a voice regardless of personality type.

— [How COVID Changed Our Classrooms? A Self-Experiment Of Online Teaching.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2020/05/14/how-covid-changed-our-classrooms-a-self-experiment-of-online-teaching/) · _Forbes_

Question 4

How did you replace yourself with a bot in your AI and product course?

Accepted Answer

_A virtual instructor keeps course content fresh and current._

I launched a public certificate program on product and AI at Cornell's Johnson School. The course is about 100 hours long. To keep the content up to date, I replaced myself with a bot, a virtual copy of myself. This allows the course material to stay current without requiring me to manually update everything. It's an example of how AI can maintain educational content in a scalable way while I focus on other work, including running my Gen AI platform for e-commerce.

— [Disrupting Traditional Banking, with Colin Walsh](https://www.lutzfinger.com/transcript/2025-05-22-disrupting-traditional-banking-with-colin-walsh/) · _The Keynote on AI_

Question 5

How did you solve the fairness problem in peer reviews for your Cornell data products course?

Accepted Answer

_Statistical personas identify unfair reviewers in peer grading systems._

We developed a data validation process to ensure fairness in peer reviews. The process analyzes metrics like total review time, time spent on each review, and number of comments left on each project. Most variables followed a Gaussian distribution, letting us use statistical tools to identify problematic reviewers. We built student personas including Lazy Graders, Harsh and Happy Graders, and Misaligned Students. Examining just three to four projects from a single student typically gave us enough insight to determine if they fit these personas, and we would re-evaluate their feedback accordingly.

— [Hack For Fairness: Unlocking The Predictive Power Of Data Validation And Quality Assurance In Education](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2023/04/03/hack-for-fairness-unlocking-the-predictive-power-of-data-validation-and-quality-assurance-in-education/) · _Forbes_

Question 6

How did you use quizzes to improve the flipped classroom model?

Accepted Answer

_Quizzes revealed where students struggled before class even started._

I asked students to do a quiz before coming to class to find out which areas they didn't understand. For example, a FiveThirtyEight video on k-means clustering Margaritas was fun, but the quiz revealed it failed to explain where the 'k' in k-means came from. This feedback let me spend more time on that point in class than I would have usually done. Content curation became the critical path, and quizzes helped me identify gaps.

— [How COVID Changed Our Classrooms? A Self-Experiment Of Online Teaching.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2020/05/14/how-covid-changed-our-classrooms-a-self-experiment-of-online-teaching/) · _Forbes_

Question 7

How does AI enable better information retrieval than traditional search?

Accepted Answer

_LLMs transform how we access and summarize information across all domains._

Large language models can read language, extract and summarize knowledge, and create new data based on what you're asking for. The internet democratized data, but data still needs processing and summarizing into chunks we can act on. LLMs make this chunking more effective. It's like how you can watch a two-hour movie and then concisely tell a friend the content. An LLM can do this for you, providing compact, concise information retrieval. This isn't just one size fits all. In education, for example, you might have many explanations for a math problem, and the question is which explanation works best for a specific student.

— [Cherry's Investment Thesis on AI](https://www.lutzfinger.com/transcript/2024-07-19-cherrys-investment-thesis-on-ai/) · _The Edge_

Question 8

How is AI changing education?

Accepted Answer

_What AI does for and to students, teachers, and curricula._

> AI agents will transform every industry — and one industry I know well is education. So, how will AI agents change how we teach and learn? To explore this question, I created the Lutz-Clone, an AI version of myself designed to teach my online certificate about AI with eCornell.

— [AI In Education — Up-level Your Teaching With AI By Cloning Yourself](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/03/31/ai-in-educationup-level-your-teaching-with-ai-by-cloning-yourself/) · _Forbes_

Question 9

How is Europe positioned in the global AI race compared to the US and China?

Accepted Answer

_Europe's talent, market size, and research create competitive advantages._

Europe is not badly positioned because it has important strengths. There are more engineers per capita in the EU than in the United States or China. Europe has a very large and rich single market, bigger than the US with more people. Europe is also very strong in research with a very high number of publications and excellent universities. The European population is on average very well educated and therefore likely to uptake technology. These factors give Europe a solid foundation for AI development and adoption.

— [AI in the EU, with Lucilla Sioli](https://www.lutzfinger.com/transcript/2025-04-24-ai-in-the-eu-with-lucilla-sioli/) · _The Keynote on AI_

Question 10

What are the three student personas you identified through data validation in peer reviews?

Accepted Answer

_Three types of problematic reviewers emerged from our validation process._

We identified three distinct student personas. Lazy Graders select largely the same answer for all questions regardless of whether responses are warranted, or spend minimal time on reviews. Harsh and Happy Graders are students who were unexpectedly strict or lenient on one project compared to others who graded that same project. Misaligned Students consistently rate all their projects significantly more positively or negatively compared to the rest of the class. These personas help us identify which feedback needs re-evaluation to maintain fairness.

— [Hack For Fairness: Unlocking The Predictive Power Of Data Validation And Quality Assurance In Education](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2023/04/03/hack-for-fairness-unlocking-the-predictive-power-of-data-validation-and-quality-assurance-in-education/) · _Forbes_

Question 11

What does the eCornell AI certificate cover?

Accepted Answer

_The five-course program structure._

> While AI can enhance scalability, human involvement remains essential. What do students in my eCornell certificate tell me after the course? AI is great at summarization and coding. An AI can help being a dynamic checklist and memory.

— [Overhyped: Manus From Monica — AI Made In China](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/03/10/overhyped-manus-from-monicaai-made-in-china/) · _Forbes_

Question 12

What engagement methods did you test and which worked best?

Accepted Answer

_Student surveys revealed multiple-choice questionnaires won for engagement._

I experimented with cold-calling via a random number generator, multiple-choice questionnaires, discussions in smaller groups, and other methods. After surveying students after each class, multiple-choice questionnaires came out on top. I created them for every 10 minutes of my course to ensure my speed was right and measure my teaching performance. I also used a Google Spreadsheet where students outlined answers in one to two sentences, then picked the most interesting ones to discuss.

— [How COVID Changed Our Classrooms? A Self-Experiment Of Online Teaching.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2020/05/14/how-covid-changed-our-classrooms-a-self-experiment-of-online-teaching/) · _Forbes_

Question 13

What has been the impact of implementing data validation in your peer review process?

Accepted Answer

_Instructors now focus time on critical reviews, elevating course quality._

Employing data validation and data quality assurance has been a game-changer for the class. As instructors, we can now concentrate on the most critical reviews, ultimately elevating the course's quality. Instead of reviewing every piece of feedback, we focus our time on re-evaluating feedback from students who fit problematic personas. Our toolset is coded in Python and can be adapted for various courses using FeedbackFruits, making this approach scalable beyond just our Designing Data Products course.

— [Hack For Fairness: Unlocking The Predictive Power Of Data Validation And Quality Assurance In Education](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2023/04/03/hack-for-fairness-unlocking-the-predictive-power-of-data-validation-and-quality-assurance-in-education/) · _Forbes_

Question 14

What is Runway at Cornell Tech and how does it support PhD entrepreneurs?

Accepted Answer

_A two-year paid fellowship helping PhDs turn research into companies._

Runway is an entrepreneurship fellowship at Cornell Tech designed to help PhDs commercialize their research. The program accepts five fellows per year and provides a two-year paid fellowship specifically to commercialize technology that you ideally developed during graduate school. It's a structured way to transition academic research into viable commercial products, giving you financial support and time to build your startup while maintaining ties to Cornell Tech's ecosystem and resources.

— [Founder Coaching: Tips for your AI Journey](https://www.lutzfinger.com/transcript/2024-07-26-founder-coaching-tips-for-your-ai-journey/) · _The Edge_

Question 15

What is the book Ask, Measure, Learn about?

Accepted Answer

_Topics covered in the O'Reilly book._

> **Publisher:** O'Reilly Media **Published:** Feb 1, 2014

— [Ask Measure Learn](https://www.lutzfinger.com/book/) · _Book — Ask, Measure, Learn_

Question 16

What is the difference between using a deepfake model and training one?

Accepted Answer

_Using deepfakes is simple, but building the underlying models is not._

There is a big difference between using a model and training a model. Today, you can create a deepfake for free in less than 30 seconds using sites like MyHeritage, D-ID, or many free deepfake applications without any programming skills. However, before we reach that self-serve tool point, we must first build a model that enables it. Underlying all deepfake tools are AI models based on neural networks. These models need a lot of training data, and creating them is not simple at all.

— [Overview Of How To Create Deepfakes - It's Scarily Simple](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2022/09/08/overview-of-how-to-create-deepfakesits-scarily-simple/) · _Forbes_

Question 17

What metrics do you use for data validation in peer review quality assurance?

Accepted Answer

_Review time and comment patterns reveal data quality issues._

Our data validation process is based on total review time, time spent on each review, the number of comments left on each project, and more. Most variables followed a Gaussian distribution, allowing us to use various statistical tools similar to those that identified cheating sumo wrestlers or overlooked baseball players. Based on predicted values from these metrics, we can identify problematic reviewing patterns. This approach mirrors data quality assurance in machine learning, where high-quality labeled data leads to better model performance.

— [Hack For Fairness: Unlocking The Predictive Power Of Data Validation And Quality Assurance In Education](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2023/04/03/hack-for-fairness-unlocking-the-predictive-power-of-data-validation-and-quality-assurance-in-education/) · _Forbes_

Question 18

What specific techniques did you use to build personal connection online?

Accepted Answer

_Being visible and playful helped create bonds in virtual classrooms._

Creating a bond is challenging when you're a small sub-window on top of a Google presentation. I went off presentation mode as often as possible so that everyone is more visible. I also spiced up the course with fun actions using Snap Cam to change myself into a potato or come in a Tuxedo to class. A personal relationship between a prof and a student is a key driver for learning, so being approachable required creative approaches.

— [How COVID Changed Our Classrooms? A Self-Experiment Of Online Teaching.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2020/05/14/how-covid-changed-our-classrooms-a-self-experiment-of-online-teaching/) · _Forbes_

Question 19

Why did you decide to teach AI and create educational programs at Cornell?

Accepted Answer

_Understanding AI enables ethical deployment and smart business decisions._

I've been teaching at Cornell for over 10 years because AI is impacting all of us, everywhere. We saw deepfakes of Taylor Swift and Russia using AI to meddle in U.S. elections. My aim is to explain AI to everyone because only if we understand it can we deploy it ethically and use it in ways that make money for businesses. I wrote a book and started these activities alongside my real job because we need to understand AI to use it responsibly and effectively.

— [AI, Clones, Deep Fakes, and Neural Networks](https://www.lutzfinger.com/transcript/2024-09-12-ai-clones-deep-fakes-and-neural-networks/) · _The Keynote on AI_

Question 20

Why didn't MOOCs revolutionize education as predicted in 2012?

Accepted Answer

_Traditional classrooms remained more adaptive than early online learning platforms._

In 2012, companies like Coursera and edX were going to change the world of education, but this revolution has not happened, at least not yet. Universities have high fixed costs, and online so far offered only minimal marginal revenue. More importantly, a traditional classroom was more adaptive than MOOCs. Teachers adapt their speed to students, and students bring diverse previous experiences that are as important as the actual lecture itself.

— [How COVID Changed Our Classrooms? A Self-Experiment Of Online Teaching.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2020/05/14/how-covid-changed-our-classrooms-a-self-experiment-of-online-teaching/) · _Forbes_

Question 21

Why does Cornell use an AI Teaching Assistant?

Accepted Answer

_What an AI TA actually does in a Cornell course._

> The challenge is clear: educational institutions must equip both students and educators with the tools and skills to harness AI effectively. In my course, students now use AI co-pilots to analyze data, build machine learning models, discuss business strategies, and explore ethical challenges. Many students were hesitant at first, sticking to manual methods. But with training on prompting and understanding AI behavior, they became…

— [AI In Education — Up-level Your Teaching With AI By Cloning Yourself](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/03/31/ai-in-educationup-level-your-teaching-with-ai-by-cloning-yourself/) · _Forbes_

Question 22

Why is education the most important defense against deepfakes?

Accepted Answer

_Like Nigerian Prince scams, awareness makes people harder to fool._

Education is the best protection against deepfakes, just like with Nigerian Prince scams. Many people won't fall for those scams anymore because they've heard about them. We need the same degree of education for deepfakes. Examples like Channel 4 in the UK creating a deepfake of the Queen's speech bring deepfakes into public discussion. At Cornell, I start each term with a one minute deepfake video welcoming MBA students. It's fun, but it's also a reminder that great technology can be abused. User awareness is critical.

— [Deepfakes - The Danger Of Artificial Intelligence That We Will Learn To Manage Better](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2022/09/08/deepfakesthe-danger-of-artificial-intelligence-that-we-will-learn-to-manage-better/) · _Forbes_

Q&A, Education

Did you actually replace yourself as a teacher with an AI clone?

How can educators use AI clones to scale their teaching?

How did online teaching create a more inclusive classroom?

How did you replace yourself with a bot in your AI and product course?

How did you solve the fairness problem in peer reviews for your Cornell data products course?

How did you use quizzes to improve the flipped classroom model?

How does AI enable better information retrieval than traditional search?

How is AI changing education?

How is Europe positioned in the global AI race compared to the US and China?

What are the three student personas you identified through data validation in peer reviews?

What does the eCornell AI certificate cover?

What engagement methods did you test and which worked best?

What has been the impact of implementing data validation in your peer review process?

What is Runway at Cornell Tech and how does it support PhD entrepreneurs?

What is the book Ask, Measure, Learn about?

What is the difference between using a deepfake model and training one?

What metrics do you use for data validation in peer review quality assurance?

What specific techniques did you use to build personal connection online?

Why did you decide to teach AI and create educational programs at Cornell?

Why didn't MOOCs revolutionize education as predicted in 2012?

Why does Cornell use an AI Teaching Assistant?

Why is education the most important defense against deepfakes?