[AI Revolution](16) AI as Our Child's Essay Teacher... TwoBlock AI

Operation of AI-based Korean Writing Correction Service 'KiwiTi'
AI Evaluates and Scores User Input Texts
"Combining Analytical AI and Generative AI to Provide Customized Content for Users"

Jo Young-hwan, CEO of Two Block AI.

Among the four language skills?listening, reading, speaking, and writing?writing is often the most challenging for many people. Some describe the process of expressing information understood through listening or reading into refined writing through one’s own reasoning as a “comprehensive art of language.” Writing skills, such as essay writing for college entrance exams or self-introduction letters for job applications, are becoming increasingly important. Recently, in the education sector, there has even been discussion about changing the college entrance exam (Suneung) into a written and essay-type test starting from the 2028 academic year.

Is there a way to minimize private education expenses while improving children’s writing skills? With this concern, the startup TwoBlockAI was established in 2019. TwoBlockAI operates 'KEEwiT,' an AI-based Korean writing correction service. When users input their writing into KEEwiT, the AI evaluates it and even assigns a score. It meticulously points out not only simple grammatical errors but also whether the arguments have appropriate evidence, if the flow of the writing is logical, and whether the content is relevant to the topic. It then suggests areas for improvement.

KEEwiT is frequently used not only by students but also by elementary, middle, and high school teachers and essay academy instructors. Teachers can receive guidance on personalized writing instruction directions and content for each student. When AI feedback is combined with teachers’ instructional experience, students can receive better feedback. Seeing this potential, the education company Daekyo made a strategic investment in TwoBlockAI in 2021.

The core AI technology of TwoBlockAI is deep learning natural language processing (NLP). If coding languages are artificial languages, the languages humans use are “natural languages.” Artificial languages have clear meanings and can be interpreted by strict rules. However, natural languages can be interpreted differently even with the same words or sentences. NLP is a technology that enables machines to find meaning in texts created by natural language and then express it again in natural language. It was developed with the aim of machines analyzing humans to ultimately assist communication between humans.

Combining Analytical AI and Generative AI to Produce Personalized Content

KiwiT Service Introduction Image. (Source=TwoBlock AI)

Younghwan Cho, CEO of TwoBlockAI, earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from KAIST in 1997 and has served as a researcher at France’s MyScript, as well as head of search services at Naver and Daum. He has devoted the past 25 years to developing NLP and dialogue systems.

Since OpenAI released GPT-2 in February 2019, CEO Cho has been interested in generative AI. At that time, as the head of the AI Research Institute (AIRI), he wanted to create a Korean version of GPT-2 but was unable to attempt it due to budget constraints and other reasons. In July of the same year, he decided to start a company and founded TwoBlockAI, emphasizing the importance of handling both analytical AI and generative AI in the future AI field. Analytical AI is traditional AI that determines whether something is an apple or a pear. Generative AI is a technology that creates new texts or images using apples or pears as examples.

Earlier this month, TwoBlockAI launched 'KEEwiChat,' a literacy chatbot based on generative AI. Typically, ChatGPT operates by having a person ask a question first and then ChatGPT responds. However, KEEwiChat reads a person’s writing and initiates questions to the person, leading a conversation of empathy. It was developed to create synergy in literacy improvement by linking with KEEwiT after receiving writing corrections. CEO Cho said, “While our existing services were implemented based on analytical AI language models, KEEwiChat combines generative AI and analytical AI,” adding, “Its distinctive feature is that it modifies ChatGPT to ask questions first to people.”

CEO Cho emphasized the need to pay attention to the changes generative AI technology will bring to the education industry. He said, “Although there has been a strong demand for personalized education in the education field, the conditions to produce large-scale content were lacking,” explaining, “This was because it was believed that experts had to produce and review all educational content.” He added, “But now, using generative AI, it is possible to create an unlimited amount of content at an appropriate level,” and “The technical environment to provide personalized educational content for each student has been completed.”