It’s Here, so What Do We Do About It?

My husband works in a school district where AI is banned, and because of this, he doesn’t feel comfortable teaching his students about AI, let alone using it. In an empathy session with students at a school UnconstrainED will be working with, students shared that they hid their AI usage from teachers, but also questioned why teachers could use it when they could not. A fair question, I’d say. At times, I struggle to understand all of the fear around the use of AI in education, but one thing I am sure of. Whether we teach about it or not, our students are being exposed to AI, and I fear that they don’t realize that they’re being exposed to it or think they are immune to it because we’re not talking or teaching about it.

Whether we engage students with AI in schools or not, they will be exposed to Deep Fakes and possibly be the victims of deep fakes – this NYT article is about students who made deep fake pictures of classmates and shared them around school. In this Verge article, a teacher was arrested for using AI to clone a principal’s voice and try to get them fired. I imagine students in that school heard about what was happening, and in the absence of knowledge (and with the presence of curiosity and adolescent risk-taking), they may have played with doing the same thing. These are both terrible examples of AI usage, and incredible opportunities for learning. If teachers aren’t allowed to talk about AI, then our students are left to navigate this new world alone, without the guidance of trusted teachers, and with just enough information to be dangerous.

So what’s the solution – obviously, rethink policies that ban AI in schools, develop responsible use policies that are developmentally appropriate, and help teachers to learn so that they can be confident guides to this new world, where danger is only lurking because we aren’t putting in street lights. Checkout UnconstrainED to learn more.