Meet the Ballina boys who are solving AI’s shortcomings at sixteen

It seems all anyone can talk about these days - Artificial Intelligence.

Its potential appears limitless, offering both exciting opportunities and serious concerns. While its applications in education can seem like a game-changer, Transition Year students Gavin Brennan, Cillian Birrane-Murray, Cody Devaney-Gallagher, and Mark Leonard were among the many in the Irish education system who found fault. 

Many school subjects rely on definitive answers that are either right or wrong. English, however, is the exception.

For that reason, studying English can be more demanding than other subjects.

The four students from St. Muredach’s College, Ballina, decided it didn’t need to be that way.

“The idea came to us in June, before Transition Year. We were in the library when the idea came to us,” Gavin told The Mayo News.

Teachers often advise students to improve by consistently practising exam questions. But in English, the group found this approach frustrating.

“We didn’t know if our answers were actually good, or if we were just repeating the same mistakes,” Gavin explained.

Unlike other subjects, essay-based work is subjective, and there was no reliable online tool to guide students. So the group asked themselves a simple question: “Why not make it ourselves?”

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GradeMate was born.

So, how does this subscription-based AI web app work?

Users begin by selecting their level - Junior Cycle or Leaving Cert, higher or ordinary level. They then upload an exam question along with their answer.

“In around ten seconds, GradeMate analyses your response based on the question,” Gavin said.

The platform provides detailed, exam-standard feedback, showing students exactly how they can improve and increase their marks.

As AI advances to meet the demands of its users, training these systems has become increasingly important.

“More and more AI services are being developed because the technology is so accessible,” Gavin says.

But building GradeMate was not straightforward.

“It was a simple process, but not an easy one. The training was very rigorous,” he said.

The group initially worked with a basic ChatGPT model, but quickly ran into problems.

“The grading was way off,” Gavin says.

To improve accuracy, the students created a feedback loop. They shared GradeMate’s assessments with their teachers, who highlighted inconsistencies.

“Teachers would say it shouldn’t be so harsh on this, or it needs to be much more lenient on other things,” he explained.

Using this feedback, the team refined the AI tool accordingly.

“And then it was just a case of repeating that exact process over and over again, until we had perfected it,”  Gavin said. “And now we have a very low margin of error, compared to people grading it.”

So why couldn’t ChatGPT be trained the same way?

“ChatGPT doesn't understand how teachers and humans interpret things; it's just reading text and deciding for itself how to understand it,” he explains.

“Our AI model is being trained on how humans understand it. So it's, that's it, really, it's just more accurate because ChatGPT has taken other things into account, and ours is just solely focused on the way Irish teachers do it, and how they meet answers.”

The group’s innovation has already gained recognition. They were recently shortlisted for the Microsoft Young Innovators of the Year award and invited to tour Microsoft’s Dublin offices.

“We took part in workshops on topics like intellectual property in AI,” Gavin said. “They also introduced us to a mentor, Russell Banks, who has years of experience in the start-up world. His advice was very helpful on the day, and Microsoft has since provided us with legal support and given us IP attorneys and great contacts.”

GradeMate is now being used in schools across Mayo; however, the group of Ballina boys are quietly confident that it can go that bit further. 

“Optimistically, we’d love to see students all over the country using it,” Gavin said. “We know it will take a lot of hard work, but we believe it has real potential to help people.”

While their focus is on supporting students, the group also hopes to ease the burden on teachers.

“When you hand up copies, you see the piles they have to bring home to correct,” Gavin said. “You can’t help but feel for them. We hope this can make a difference.”

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