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The sudden surge in development of artificial intelligence (AI) has been a boon for powerful technology companies; many of which are driven by shareholder profits, brand recognition, and brand legacy. This surge has initiated a global AI arms race of sorts that seeks the undivided attention and control of its consumers. Despite the large-scale interest, the major players investing billions of dollars in this technology boil down to a small number of heavy hitters.
Today’s AI experience is based on the latest Large Language Models (LLMs), such as OpenAI’s Chat-GPT4, Google’s Gemini, and Microsoft’s Copilot. However, humanity’s first contact with AI was the rudimentary algorithms baked into social media in the 2010s. These algorithms analyzed how people engaged with online content, and used that data to optimize what was shown to them on screen to maximize engagement. This led to the advent of a field of study known as persuasive technology, dedicated to changing attitudes and behaviours via hard-coded persuasion and social influence, ensuring the general population’s interactions with AI were designed with intent – to keep eyeballs glued to screens. This powerfully persuasive technology, wielded by companies driven by profit and power, has caused great anxiety and social dilemmas that continue to confound to this day.
Is AI a threat to teachers or other professions at-large? Some experts suggest that AI first needs to surpass human intelligence. This moment in time is known as the “technology singularity,” or “takeoff,” and AI would thereafter be called “Artificial General Intelligence.” In contrast, technology ethicist Tristan Harris has stated that AI only needs to surpass human weakness. If this is true, then the use of AI in social media has already demonstrated that capability.
Alongside tech giants, governments and private enterprise are quietly using AI to test the boundaries of replacing, or even managing, human workers. Amazon, for example, is a global leader in the use of AI for employee recruitment and management. The tech-retail giant currently uses AI to track worker productivity, leading to the firing of workers deemed inefficient.
Privatization of education via AI “innovation”
In the education sector, AI’s incursion into the field of tutoring is growing exponentially. Khanmigo and SchoolAI are established AI tutoring services in the United States. Sal Khan, who is the founder of the Khan Academy, which has 150 million subscribers globally, has been piloting Khanmigo with users 18 years old and above to test its AI deployment, while SchoolAI is open to everyone.
In Canada, Ottawa’s AI Tutor is one of 76 AI education startups, according to Tracxn’s Innovation Tracker. Until funding sources for these companies are made clear, the monitoring of public funds dedicated to innovation in the education sector must be scrutinized.
School systems around the world are already being invited to use AI-based attendance systems for students. GeniusEDU boasts the use of AI and facial recognition to track students while in the building, and is one of thousands of products that combine biometric identification with AI.
Students are not the only focus either; PunchClock AI is a British company that uses facial recognition to provide real-time data on teacher attendance and their activities. Their website boasts the promise that “institutions can maintain a safe and efficient learning environment while ensuring that teachers are at their posts when needed.”
AI is just a tool
Sorry – no, it’s not.
The use of a tool is asymmetric between power and authority – a tool and its user. The user is in complete control and can wield the tool to suit their goals. In terms of the balance of power, AI is powered by technology that uses the user in ways that were never possible before. The argument that AI is a tool is not applicable to the modern field of AI because the balance of power is now in the hands of the AI and its creators.
When teachers, or any other professional, embrace the use of AI in their work, they open the door to powerful entities who seek entrance into the education-sector marketplace. As AI performance improves in areas of creativity, communication, and problem solving, the line between human-to-human and AI-to-human interaction begins to blur.
What it means to teach – to be empathetic, compassionate, patient, and forgiving – to be human – is being eroded by a lack of a regulation and corporate greed. This process is also being turbo charged by governments set on privatizing publicly funded education, potentially robbing students of human contact and turning them into just another commodity.
Teachers have a precious responsibility: to teach future generations to think independently, to solve problems, and to reflect values that demonstrate care, compassion, empathy, and love for others.
Bias and oppression
The phrase “garbage in, garbage out,” is common in the world of AI. Translation: AI is only as strong as the data that feeds it. If that data contains oppression, bias, or bigotry, those elements will end up in the output. An example of the garbage-in-garbage-out phenomenon played out for the world to see in 2016 when Microsoft released Tay, an AI chatbot. As the AI fed upon hateful rhetoric on social media, it began posting messages that were racist, sexually charged, and even denied the Holocaust. Microsoft tried to shun responsibility by blaming the offensive behaviour on Twitter (now called X) users, labelling the disaster “a debacle of a well-meaning experiment gone wrong.” Microsoft shut Tay down just two days after its launch.
When profit and power are the drivers of AI innovation, we must approach with suspicion. What is “right” or ethical is not considered. Wealth, power, and knowledge in the hands of the few threatens the balance, safety, and wellbeing of everyone. AI is unlike any other technology introduced before. Technology tools of the past, such as calculators, basic computation, advanced algorithms, digital libraries, the early internet, and major aspects of the modern internet, were tools to be used by people. The development and release of complex AI has reversed the power dynamic between tool and user.
The argument that AI needs surpass the most intelligent of humans to become a threat ignores all of human history and the dehumanizing events that came about because of human weakness, not human strength.
At this point in time, AI is not regulated or ethically coded. Actors in the industry have little-to-no impetus to abide by ethical standards for the creation and implementation of the technology. There is no regard for the impact of well-intentioned innovation, which can be painful to individuals and corrosive to the fabric of a free-thinking society.
Teachers have a precious responsibility: to teach future generations to think independently, to solve problems, and to reflect values that demonstrate care, compassion, empathy, and love for others. We must be vigilant when school boards, employers, or governments attempt to introduce AI-driven technology for management, training, or student use. We must fight for the recognition of accessibility, inclusion, diversity, and equity. The Association must be ready to act when systems of oppression are implemented to manage members. Finally, we must defend the noble idea that teachers hold authority over their professional judgment. It is enshrined in our profession and defines human traits that cannot be emulated.
Never has the world witnessed development of a technology of this nature. Advocates will tout a robust list of benefits, but reality will reveal a greater list of wrongs, some yet to be identified, that can cause a greater harm than ever imagined. Organizations that defend the greater good, the interests of people in a free-thinking, educated society, must be vigilant and ready to defend what it truly means to be human.
