AI is coming for education too

Whether you like it, or not

I’ve locked in. Turned 30. Got greys. Jumping on my silver surfboard.

Last week, I went to an AI in education conference (1). I’m now obsessed with how AI will take over the system.

As you can tell from the awful photo I took, teachers are using AI. The report this graph was taken from highlights how. Well, how a sample of 280 teachers are. There’s probably a few more.

This is happening now. Despite fuck all research on trustworthy and ethical tools to use in education (2).

Already, lots of people are selling expensive tech solutions to problems teachers are trying to solve themselves based on the impressiveness of the technology alone.

You can’t blame anyone for their intrigue. I’ve been locked in since the public launch of ChatGPT. I’ve added Perplexity and NotebookLM to my arsenal recently too. These AI tools save time, make me seem intelligent, and generally, they give better answers to questions I used to ask Google.

I’m fairly certain given how much more personal time I’ve got and how good it’s making me look to my bosses and my partner that AI can do a lot of good for young people in schools.

But I’m also scared that it will only do this for certain groups and it isn’t researched sufficiently and it could cause significant harms and it’s in the hands of big tech companies and terrorists using AI could kill us all eventually, unless…

WE THE PEOPLE. Ensure AI is regulated and researched rigorously and embedded equitably and effectively.

No one is gonna do that for us, because there’s too much money to be had.

If we do, a lot of good things might happen and a lot of bad things might not happen.

Terrorists using AI could still kill us, though.

So I’ve started writing this blog to help me find a way to;

a) promote good things coming from AI in education and highlight bad things coming from AI in education.

and b) find someone or something that cares.

Hopefully that will save me from terrorists using AI. And you. And your mum.

I’m focused on ensuring AI doesn’t adversely affect how young people build relationships with their friends, enemies, and the adults in their lives.

I’ve spent five-and-a-half years spreading the gospel for FBB that relationships matter most for young people. Admittedly, I’ve been institutionalised. Now I’m a believer. I’m also yet to hear a convincing argument that anything else matters more.

Physical, mental and financial health are obviously up there. But relationships are the most impactful antidote when these aren’t where you’d want them to be.

Q: Think of the hardest thing you’ve ever been through. What got you through it?

When the system fails to provide relationships, there’s something wrong with what the system is set up to do. That’s why I’m intrigued by AI tools. If they free up teachers’ and students’ time to develop relationships, then AI is doing essential work the system isn’t currently enabling.

So, I went to the AI in education conference hoping to learn more about how different tools could help. I listened to lots of EdTech waft. I listened to some sensible teachers talking about safeguarding and privacy. But there was one question I wanted answered.

How can we use AI to free up teachers time to build better relationships with their students?

I decided to pose my question to Professor Wayne Holmes. Professor Holmes is one of the big dogs of AI in education and works in Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence and Education in the UCL Knowledge Lab.

His work has been influential in leading to the **Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and human rights, democracy and the rule of law — **the first-ever international legally binding treaty on AI.

I received an insightful answer. To summarise, he explained that first we need evidence that AI tools didn’t undermine safety, mental health and cognition. In the meantime, we might be better served investing money we’d spend on AI tools to hire more staff to go and build more relationships with more young people.

Now that I had an answer to my question, I went back to the office and told everyone AI was ‘cancelled’. Smoke and mirrors for my new obsession. Within the clouds of reflection I was asking questions like:

• Is AI good?
• Is AI bad?
• Are teachers going to be replaced by AI?
• Are students going to be replaced by AI?
• Am I going to be replaced by AI?

There were so many questions, too many to list seriously.

But there was one key reflection.

AI advancements meant money to be made.

In education, that shouldn’t be where we start.

Show me the evidence.

Now, here’s an image I got from Dall-E with the prompt “show me an image that depicts AI taking over the education system” which is dystopian and shit.

Thanks for reading. More to come on AI in education soon.

(1) run by the City Schools Group (ooo fancy)

(2) In a systematic review) of trustworthy and ethical AI in Education (AIED) just 62 papers were discovered for final analysis, highlighting a research gap