But the reality is that AI are already here in the modern era, and they're a lot more common than most people realize. AI already sees practical use in most facets of everyday life, and takes shape in a myriad of forms, performing a plethora of functions. Ranging from AI that help write essays, others that grade exams and papers, to AI that help create a more personalized lesson plan, there are plenty of AI already in use. With the advent of AI happening now, there need to be questions asked that were commonly ignored before. What limits do we place on AI, and where do we draw the line? While there is no definitive answer, there are arguments for and against AI, especially in the educational system. The question that needs to now be asked is should we include even more AI, or push them away from the young children and teachers they were designed to help? The data, depending on how it is interpreted, will help guide people to many different answers. However, all one can do is analyze the ethics around the situation, learn about the various AI in use, gather opinions from those directly involved within the situation, and then boil it down to what could, and should, be considered right or wrong.

The end result is an AI; An unfeeling, logic-based mind that can only determine right or wrong based upon the data it has been presented with. In a 2019 piece by Ferry Hoes, The Importance of Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, there is a defined outline of two key things that must be considered when discussing AI in any field, those being, the reasoning of what an AI will be doing and what ethics need to be applied, and how as a whole, humans will monitor and police the AI to ensure that a certain code of ethics is being upheld. (Hoes, 2019) The most ethical issue within creating and using any AI, let alone using it in the educational system, is the ethics the AI will have after its been properly coded and trained. AIs are the products of humans, so it's only reasonable that AI are only as ethical as the people who create them. As a result, there is much debate and concern around the use of AI in schools when there is no guarantee that AI will not create more problems than the ones that already exist. 

While these are all acts easily done by humans, they are all also tedious and time consuming. Some actions, such as taking attendance, only require a minute or two, but others such as scanning for plagiarism and handwriting notes from lectures can be very time consuming. The time spent grading, analyzing, and copying could be better used, both on the sides of teachers and students. Time once spent trying to copy every single word said from the mouth of the professor could be used to actually understand the words being spoken. Professors wouldn’t need to spend hours scouring for plagiarism and could instead focus on gauging the quality of the work, assured that their students' paper isn’t something they stole from another source. There is always the argument that AI could be incorrect in their judgements, and that is entirely within the realm of possibility. Notable examples include the autocorrect that permeates most modern messaging systems. How often has a word you’ve misspelled by one letter turned into something completely different? While it’s safe to say that there are plenty of mistakes along the way, AI are trained specifically to reduce these errors, and create the most accurate answer possible for the given problem. Between concerns of the students AI will be teaching, the parents of those students, or the teachers who will work alongside the AI, there is much to be discussed. So let’s start with a deeper dive into the technology currently at work in the US educational system. 

Early grade school students also appear to have a fascination with AI aside from using it as a tool. As seen when elementary school teacher Laura Butler utilized a smart speaker in her classroom, Students will ask the AI so many questions . Some of these questions are “curiosities”(Klein, 2022) or obscure and/or random questions a kid might ask such as: How many teeth does a shark have?; Do bees sleep?; etc. Other questions they ask tend to be test questions for the AI to see how much it knows. For example, they will ask “What’s 2+2?” because they want to see how accurate it is, and they’ll ask multiple times with different students to see if the device answers the same way.(Klein, 2022) A third use that Butler took note of in her classroom was that the students would see the smart speaker as something or someone for emotional reassurance. One of the prominent examples of this was when two students had a fight and instead of going to Butler who was in the classroom, one of the students asked “Alexa, am I a good friend?”(Klein, 2022) Clearly, younger students and children in general see AI as more than just a tool, and possibly even as an actual person.

However, with how much of a role the AI could have in the classroom, teachers become concerned with how much will the human teacher be needed if the AI can also teach? For example, looking back at Butlers' classroom she questions certain parts of the curriculum because the students are just going to ask the smart speaker.(Klein, 2022) Also with her experience of the students asking the smart speaker for support even when she was in the room, and the students thinking the AI is smarter than the teacher, which concerns teachers because they are not seen as valuable to the students. Schools might start to consider switching to AI taught systems, might ask if students prefer humans or AI. And if the students agree to go to AI taught classes, then human teachers are out of the job.

Another concern of teachers is the amount of cheating students use AI for. Some schools have seen it as such a big problem that they block programs like ChatGPT on school devices in cities including LA, Seattle, and New York.(Jimenez, 2023) But there’s disagreement on this action as some teachers think that they should try to use these programs, so students do not see them as easy outs but tools to help them complete schoolwork.(Krueger, 2023)

Another concern of AI in education is the possibility of losing out on the many social aspects of education if schools become too dependent on the technology. AI programs can perform the duties of teachers in many aspects of teaching. The relationship between student and teacher is a major aspect of school and plays a large role in a child’s development. Technology addiction and over-reliance on devices is already a major theme among young people and society, and further pushing more technology on children would likely only worsen this problem.  

AI must be used as a tool, not a replacement for the role of a teacher. Artificial intelligence will never be able to fully replace teachers due to humans possessing “mirror neurons” which play a key role in learning (Lambert, 2021). Mirror neurons respond equally when someone performs an action and observes someone also commit that action. They play a major role in how humans learn through observation and imitation. However these neurons are only triggered through observation of other human beings. Learning through an observation of an AI won’t cause the same crucial chemical reactions in the brain that are caused when we interact with other human beings. A teacher is also capable of showing emotion and other human attributes. Observing this social behavior is another part of learning and education that can’t be properly replicated by AI. 

Schools are highly social environments where there are various situations and happenings going on completely separate from education. However, in many instances these factors directly impact and influence learning, and thus teachers do their best to understand their students' situations at school when issues arise. This leads into another issue with  AI, in that it is unable to understand context in the learning environment and is blind to environmental issues that could be affecting student’s learning. A teacher who sees a student everyday is better able to understand the student’s character and social environment, so if an issue comes up where a student’s learning breaks down, they can work with the student to figure out what is causing the issue. An AI is incapable of accounting for possible human-issues that come up in educational environments that can potentially get in the way of learning. This shows a greater issue with AI which is that they are unable to relate with humans on a human level. Teachers were all once students which allows for students and teachers to have shared experience, and an understanding from the teacher of what students are going through. Students gain inspiration and affirmation through this empathy from teachers. With AI there’s no inspiration or incentive for students to learn as AI has no human behind it who put in the actual effort to learn the subject as the students are expected to do. While AI may be able to generate effective teaching content, it lacks the human and social elements that are equally important in the education process.

Another major educational sector that can be benefitted from AI is special education. AI can be used as a tool to make learning more simple for students with special needs and be personalized to meet each student’s needs or challenges (Roybi, 2022). For example, many students on the autism spectrum have verbal and communication challenges. AI can be used to benefit students with these challenges and aid them in their communication and learning. AI is also able to give instant feedback and ensure students are achieving a certain level of comprehension before moving onto the next task. This is especially beneficial in special education as it ensures that students with disabilities are getting timely, individualized feedback. This ensures that they are not left behind or neglected, as could be possible in a classroom with just one instructor. AI can also provide more data and analytical insight for teachers to improve their classrooms. It can compare how students are performing compared to their peers, and potentially illuminate where teaching is ineffective and where students are struggling. Early detection of potential learning disabilities is another insight AI can potentially provide in early education. AI may detect a potential delay in a student’s learning that a teacher or parent may fail to recognize. Disabilities such as Dyslexia, Autism, and speech impairment can potentially be detected by AI systems early on and those systems can then adjust for those students. All of these benefits in special education are also valid in other sectors of education, however, AI can be especially effective in simplifying and making learning more accessible for those with disabilities. 

Educators are tasked with a number of  “medial” duties that can be made more efficient by AI. AI can streamline grading, data analysis, and administrative tasks which will allow for teachers to spend more time on lesson planning, facilitating class discussions, and have more time to meet with individual students. Students will benefit from teachers whose sole responsibilities are to teach and provide an education for their students, and not also having to balance a multitude of tedious grading and administrative tasks. 

Artificial Intelligence will undoubtedly bring a multitude of new developments to education, and the technology will continue to improve. AI will continue to bring new developments to personalized learning, higher student engagement, and automation to make the classroom more efficient. A potential future aspect of AI will be further implementation of virtual and augmented reality technology in education to go along with AI systems. Immersive technologies allow students to engage in immersive virtual field-tips or interact with virtual three-dimensional objects (Dick, 2021). AR/VR technology can also vastly improve the remote learning experience by offering a higher level of immersion and engagement. In a virtual reality environment students can interact with their peers and instructors in a shared, highly immersive, virtual environment. This immersion and feeling of connectivity benefits student’s attention spans, engagement, and focus which is especially important in a remote learning environment. These virtual reality systems will also utilize AI to optimize and personalize the immersive learning experience for each student’s individual needs.

AI must also be closely monitored to ensure that proper educational standards are being met. For example, ensuring the literacy level of AI responses equates to the level of education a student is at is a basic and instrumental necessity that must be monitored. If AI is left on its own with no monitoring of its quality, its possible students can be hurt by AI providing an inadequate level of education or providing a level of education beyond the user's current comprehension level. AI also must be sure to be bias-free and not perpetuate stereotypes or discrimination. This is a major concern, as AI in education could possibly perpetuate, reproduce, or amplify inequalities. AI perpetuating racial inequalities is a concern as the education system is already perpetuating bias (Hebbar and Jacobs, 2021). AI developers must be sure to get ahead and surveille AI systems to be sure inequalities aren’t being perpetuated. This bias is called “Algorithmic Bias” which discrimination against one group over another as a result of machine learning (Wood, 2021). This sort of bias has already been shown to take place. For instance, Amazon experimented with an AI based recruitment software that relied on a 10 year history of résumés. The software had to be discontinued as the system consistently favored male candidates over women (Wood, 2021). A similar software at University of Texas Austin that used past admission decisions as its database was discontinued after critics claimed it reduced opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds (Wood, 2021). With issues already arising across both business and educational sectors, it will be critical to ensure that AI in education is bias-free and free of feedback loops perpetuating existing bias and inequality. 

Ultimately, the most important regulation for AI in education is that it needs to be transparent. AI systems are only as effective as the information that they are using, and access to this information is critical in ensuring that systems are using proper and credible information. Having access to the root sources of information is critical to ensuring students' learning as well, as students will be able to find more information and context from root sources of information. It’s important that AI does not become an easy failsafe for research, and that students continue to cross reference and confirm the sources that AI gives them. Ultimately, AI will be largely beneficial in aiding efficiency and learning in educational environments, however precautions and steps must be taken to ensure its proper use as a tool, and not a replacement for teachers and social aspects of education.

Authors

Cate Downey: 2025 Psychology 

Daniel Forester: 2024 Architecture

Zachary Demers: 2025 Creative Writing

Max Goodwin: 2024 Marketing