Laws of Edu-Automation? Three Different Approaches to Deal with Processes of Automation and Artificial Intelligence in the Field of Education

Abstract

This contribution reports on a symposium that aimed to collectively discuss different approaches to deal with processes of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of education. Inspired by Asimov's Laws of Robotics and Pasquale's recently published New Laws of Robotics, the symposium's purpose was to collectively advance laws that would be specifically tailored to the field of education. In that regard, the term eduautomation seeks to propose ways of conceptualizing and imagining automation as an educational endeavor; that is, not as a purely technical-factual matter that is subsequently translated into educational practice, but equally as a matter of educational concern. Through three narratives and propositions, this contribution discusses similarities and differences between the concepts of automation and AI, and shows some of the different features that tie education and automation together. The variety and substantial differences between the three accounts shows that automation and AI cannot be approached single-sidedly, and that in order to come to a profound understanding of this phenomenon, we need to deploy a variety of theoretical, educational, and normative standpoints and positions.

“I can almost recognize its voice”: AI and its impact on ethical teacher-centaur labor

“…Given this, there is a renewed need for a focus of technoethics in education (Krutka et al , 2019) to ensure that centaurs’ impulse toward convenience does not pave the way for less critical work around surveillance capitalism and data privacy in schools moving forward. Moreover, given the fears of AI automation (Decuypere et al , 2023) and the speculations of teachers one day being replaced by robots (Edwards and Cheok, 2018; Selwyn, 2019), new ethical questions arise regarding how teachers use tools such as ChatGPT. Given the normlessness of this moment, one is left to speculate whether the data centaurs willingly offer up on AI platforms today are being used to train educator bots of the future.…”

“…First, outsourcing teaching tasks to AI risks the possibility of further deprofessionalizing education by reinforcing the idea that the knowledge and competencies of teachers can be reducible to algorithms. Second, taken to its extreme, concerns have been raised about AI automation in education (Decuypere et al , 2023) and the provocative speculations about robots supplanting human teachers (Selwyn, 2019). For example, some have argued that AI could address current trends in teacher attrition by designing robot teachers capable of teaching and “taking on affective relationships with learners” (Edwards and Cheok, 2018, p. 355) – a haunting proposal which suggests that, rather than improving working conditions to address teacher attrition, it would be more expedient to replace teachers with robots.…”

Researching In/Visibilities and Data Practices in Education

“…Educational actors might lack information about their own and others' data practices or ascribe divergent meanings to the same data. For example, some aspects of data production and usage practices in educational contexts often remain opaque due to educational technology design, while others are being invisibilised alongside with some actors' precarious working conditions (Decuypere et al, 2023;Yu & Couldry, 2022;Zakharova & Jarke, 2022, 2023. The question for educational researchers interested in data, then, is how to approach this methodologically, when data practices are related to in/visibilities in practice.…”

Language sense classification model based on neural network

“…With the continuous maturity of artificial intelligence technology in recent years, users can fully utilize internet resources to collect as much excellent knowledge and content as possible, gather better learning methods, and form a comprehensive knowledge and skills-sharing platform [1,2]. In addition, artificial intelligence, as an auxiliary teaching tool, can improve students' learning efficiency and enhance their learning ability.…”