Nordisk tidsskrift for pedagogikk og kritikk (Jan 2024)

On the Limits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education

  • Neil Selwyn

DOI
https://doi.org/10.23865/ntpk.v10.6062
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1

Abstract

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The recent hyperbole around artificial intelligence (AI) has impacted on our ability to properly consider the lasting educational implications of this technology. This paper outlines a number critical issues and concerns that need to feature more prominently in future educational discussions around AI. These include: (i) the limited ways in which educational processes and practices can be statistically modelled and calculated; (ii) the ways in which AI technologies risk perpetuating social harms for minoritized students; (iii) the losses incurred through reorganising education to be more ‘machine readable’; and (iv) the ecological and environmental costs of data-intensive and device-intensive forms of AI. The paper concludes with a call for slowing down and recalibrating current discussions around AI and education – paying more attention to issues of power, resistance and the possibility of re-imagining education AI along more equitable and educationally beneficial lines.

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