Will AI replace teachers by 2030?
Plus, try the AI for Teachers podcast
In this edition
🧑🏫Will AI replace teachers?
📻AI for teachers podcast
🧠Teaching AI Ethics
📋UNESCO k-12 AI literacy curricula
Welcome!
Teaching is far more than just the transmission of facts.
As G. K. Chesterton put it “Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.”
With something as significant as the soul of a civilisation at stake, I was amazed to find out that there’s a vocal group who think the profession of teaching is on its last legs.
While speaking at an AI in Education conference recently, I had a long and interesting discussion with a cohort of thought leaders who were convinced that AI will replace teachers in just a handful of years.
I think they’re dead wrong, and today I’ll show you why.
In exciting news, I’ve started the AI for Teachers Podcast. It contains my weekly editorial, along with the ideas that didn’t make it into the written version.
See what you think!
On a personal note, the long, warm Tasmanian evenings have allowed me to rekindle my passion for lawn golf.
My wife and I get pretty competitive, but at the moment she’s got a small handicap. A nine-week-old in a front pack tends to hamper the swing. I’m in trouble once the young guy is out of the pack…
Blessings
Paul Matthews
Will AI replace teachers by 2030?
The audio version of this editorial can be found below. For all you iTunes fans, I’ll have it on the platform next week.
Learning is a reflection of who we are
Any discussion about education and AI rests on deep philosophical footings.
This is because it inevitably raises questions about the nature of education, the purpose of teaching, and, ultimately, what humans are.
Here is the reality:
Humans are not just brains on sticks.
Of course, if we were, then education would simply be the imparting of knowledge.
But humans are infinitely more complex than that.
We are a mixture of heart, soul, mind, and body.
We are incarnate; we are embodied.
To remove a teacher and replace her with AI is to disembody education, and a disembodied education will not work for embodied people.
Learning is interconnected
Some colleagues at the conference weren’t arguing the teacher would be removed completely - they were suggesting a hybrid mode.
The AI provides bespoke learning while the educator is reduced to something of a camp counsellor or babysitter.
This certainly could happen - in fact, I’m sure it will - and I’m just as sure it won’t go well.
The fatal flaw in this approach is that academic, moral, and social learning doesn’t happen in discreet units. You can’t farm out academic learning to an algorithm, and leave moral and social learning to a human because learning isn’t so easily trichotomised.
Often great moral lessons are learned during academic study. If you were a fly on the wall as my Year 9 History class were learning about WWI, you would see this in action.
In the same way, disciplinary conversations with students inevitably give rise to academic and social learning.
Trying to study academic content on Monday and moral content on Tuesday is like trying to walk on your left leg one day and your right leg the next.
Academia and morality are part of the same body of knowledge; trying to dislocate them is no better than trying to dislocate your leg.
AI-exclusive learning is radically depersonalised
Those who champion the idea that AI will replace teachers argue that it will hyper-personalise education.
To be fair, every student receiving a personalised education is a great goal.
One-size-fits-all education is rarely better than one-size-fits-all clothing.
In a world where teachers are replaced with AI - so they argue - every student gets tailored content that is right in their academic goldilocks zone.
However, this is personalised learning only in the most superficial form.
On a deeper level, it is deeply depersonalised. It is removing the person.
There are many systemic issues within education. None of them will be solved through less human interaction.
The true blessing of AI will be allowing teachers to fast-track their admin and spend more time with their students, not less.
Teachers are safe
I’d happily bet my house that teachers won’t have gone anywhere by 2030, or by 2300 for that matter.
Even if an institution tries eliminating teachers, the bitter fruit will soon reinforce what educators already know.
You can’t educate humans without humans.
Resources
These resources have been useful in shaping my thinking on AI in education this week. Shares are not endorsements.
Teaching AI Ethics - Leon Furze https://leonfurze.com/2023/01/26/teaching-ai-ethics/
UNESCO release draft k-12 AI Curricula https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000380602
Parent perspectives on AI https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/618576e680385ccd778de78c/6519f1be0b06b4f4d5f9f4d3_PSO%20AI%20White%20Paper-FINAL.pdf
Whilst AI might replace teachers by 2030, AI certainly has replaced some peoples homework even in current years! Maybe lawn golf is the secret to world domination, and reaching the educational fast lane that all students wish to achieve.