United Kingdom, Sept. 16 -- An Australian university lecturer has discovered that students can be surprisingly accepting of artificial intelligence after replacing himself with an AI-generated avatar during a teaching experiment.

Dr Luke Rowe, a senior education researcher at Australian Catholic University (ACU), created the AI version as part of a lesson exploring the ethics and practical uses of artificial intelligence.

Many students did not immediately realise their lecturer had been replaced.

Despite clues including mismatched hand movements and speech, the AI avatar was convincing enough that students continued watching the lecture without identifying the change.

The biggest surprise came after students were told they had been wa...