Back when the COVID-19 Pandemic hit, the world was hit with a surge of Artificial Intelligence. With children at home learning from lagging Google Meets and Google Classroom assignments, education hit a massive low. However, I remember vividly how my sister struggled with major anxiety as her seven-year old self simply could not bear to keep learning from her Doodle Math or Khan Academy lessons, instead of from her kind, understanding Kindergarten teacher’s face. Artificial Intelligence was not ready to replace the educational system and the role of human teachers then, and it certainly is not now.
Teachers have formed every aspect of the world. They pass on knowledge to generations that rise up year after year, molding individuals into their identity. They are role models, figures students can grow up connecting to, understanding, and admiring, and I find that is impossible to do with a robot. While AI has shown to be crucial and groundbreaking in fields such as science, medicine, or even business, it lacks those human qualities that go above academics. Of course, I understand its role in assisting teachers, such as helping out with lesson plans or formatting emails, but farther than that I find it takes away from education.
In a KVUE television broadcast from earlier this year titled, “’We don’t have teachers’ | This Austin private school lets AI teach core subjects,” we get a glimpse at a world with no teachers. In the video, a private school in Austin, Texas explains how their students learn daily from an AI teacher on their computers. The co-founder of the school explains how in core subjects AI is “feeding them to students”, when in reality, core subjects cannot be taught in this calculated way. I think that Math, English, and Science are all subjects that need to be experienced, visualized, heard, and learned in many more ways than the information being “fed” into the brains of the children.
Moreover, as exciting as AI may be, it is not cheap. Just like this school in Texas, Sky News reports on David Game College in London beginning all AI-led classrooms. Both of these schools have reported the high expense of installing and maintaining this technology, and with this, a financial barrier creates an exclusionary environment to those who struggle to afford this type of classroom setting. Also, in the classroom in Austin, the class seemed to lack diversity, with almost every student being white. Clearly, this new method of learning will eventually spread, and the results will be soon noticed among these target groups.
In the end, I believe this difference in education will only further feed the disparity between private and public kids, as well as white kids and kids of other races. In many ways, AI is an exciting, innovative tool that the world is hesitantly beginning to accept more of. Yet, as this happens, caution must be our number one priority as it could also be our greatest divider. In the end, no piece of equipment will ever experience or have the ability to share the emotions and structures that make us human. In positions that can be as formative an crucial as educators, I believe this is where the line must be drawn.
