Artificial intelligence could be used to help generate exam questions, the head of England’s exams regulator has suggested.

Sir Ian Bauckham, interim chief regulator at Ofqual, said artificial intelligence (AI) can support exam boards in creating question papers which are comparable to previous years.

But addressing MPs on the Education Select Committee on Tuesday, Sir Ian said it was “imperative” that a human oversees the marking of students’ work as the public still wants this process in place for qualifications.

Sir Ian, who has served as the interim chief regulator of Ofqual since January, has been selected as the Government’s preferred candidate for the permanent position.

My judgment would be that there are fewer risks to public confidence there, providing a human is in the loop for final sign-off, than in the actual marking of student work

During his pre-appointment hearing before the committee, Sir Ian said: “There are lots and lots of useful, helpful, quality improving things AI can do, but marking work itself must be overseen by a human being.”

He added: “There is potential, I think, for some very exciting uses of AI for the generation of question papers, for comparing question papers year-on-year.”

The Ofqual chief said generating question papers which are roughly the same level of difficulty each year is “labour intensive” and “difficult”.

Sir Ian said: “It may well be that AI can support with that.

“My judgment would be that there are fewer risks to public confidence there, providing a human is in the loop for final sign-off, than in the actual marking of student work.”

You can't easily ask a computer to explain to you why it's made a judgment about the marking of your work in a way that you can ask an examiner to explain that

The chief regulator said: “Decisions made by AI evaluating a piece of work that a student has produced for a high-stakes assessment are less transparent and therefore less open to challenge than they might be if marked by a human.

“You can’t easily ask a computer to explain to you why it’s made a judgment about the marking of your work in a way that you can ask an examiner to explain that.”

He told MPs that the vast majority of GCSE and A-level assessments involve “some degree of extended writing” which would need a human to look at.

But Sir Ian acknowledged that there could be some “very simple, selective response items”, such as multiple choice questions, which could be marked safely by a machine but with a human checking the process.

On Tuesday, Ofsted announced that it has been asked by the Government to carry out research into the use of AI in education.

The review will investigate how schools and colleges in England are already using AI, and how leaders are managing risks associated with AI use.