Will BCI have a place in education?

Consider the quote from professor Karim Lakhani interviewed in the Harvard Business review:

"Just as the internet has drastically lowered the cost of information transmission, AI will lower the cost of cognition". (Ai won't replace humans - but humans with AI will replace humans without AI 2023)  

Lakhani is referring to the impact on the business world but it is just as relevant to overlay this statement on education.  With the rise of the internet and the mobility of access to information educators have moved away from purveyors of information to enablers of critical analysis and the application of information.  According to Musk in the future AI will be able to do everything better than humans.  How does education adapt to support to flourishing of learners when we have such tools?  At this time to empower the future generation to use the tools most efficiently, the ability to communicate effectively becomes of paramount importance as do ethical considerations, an understanding of what we are interfacing with, and who we are as people.  If humans are meant to have enhanced neuro capabilities through BCI, as Musk predicts, this could create a future in which one person has an 'unnatural' ability over another. 

How does this fit in with equity?

Clearly it is equitable if we have the opportunity through BCI technologies to restore vision, hearing, and the use of limbs.  In those examples the restoration is of something that person would or should have had in a fair world.  However society has a much less favourable view of unnatural things that give humans an upper hand over one another such as performance enhancing drugs or genetic editing.   

Regardless of how much and how fast this technology will come into our lives, as Musk points out we already are in some ways cyborgs.  We already interface with our devices like never before.  Educators and governments are already having these difficult policy discussions of device management in educational settings.  See recent announcement made in my own province of BC here. 

Clearly whether we are talking about BCI, AI, self driving cars or other technologies, philosophy (as a subject) will have a growing importance in education as society is confronted with ethical questions that have in the past been more theoretical.  From the philosophy we embed into technology to our understanding of what it means to be human.  

I hope this OER has provided you with some new insights into this topic and sparked some new thoughts into the questions of the implications this technology will have on mobility, education and the human experience.