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Ethics Activities and Classroom Discussions
The following scenarios are designed to be used as short introductory discussions with students about ethics in AI. Each activity can be completed in less than 10 minutes and asks students to wrestle with the question:
“Do the benefits justify the potential harms?”
These scenarios work well as warm-ups or opening discussions, but they can also be adapted for persuasive writing, class debates, Socratic seminars, or extended ethical analysis. They are intended to spark thinking, encourage debate, and introduce students to ethical considerations in real-world AI applications
For each scenario:
Display the scenario on the board or hand it out to students.
Ask students to provideheir opinion on the central question and their rationale
As the discussion winds down, use the follow-up probing questions and thought experiments to deepen reflection, challenge assumptions, or explore edge cases.
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January 7th, 2026
Case 1: The “Mostly Accurate” Attendance System
Case 1: The “Mostly Accurate” Attendance System
A school district adopts an AI-powered attendance system that uses facial recognition to automatically mark students present. The system works accurately for most students and saves teachers significant time each day.
After rollout, administrators discover the system misidentifies students with darker skin tones at higher rates, occasionally marking them absent when they are present. The district plans to fix the issue in a future update but continues using the system in the meantime.
Central Question:
Do the benefits justify the potential harms? Should the district continue using the system while improvements are in progress, or pause its use until accuracy is equitable?
Topics to Explore:
Student Instructions:
Identify the benefits of the AI system.
Identify the harms of the AI system.
State your opinion and explain your reasoning.
Follow-Up Probing Questions/Thought Experiments:
Quantifying the benefits:
Suppose teacher spend 50 minutes a week taking attendance (2 minutes a class with 5 classes 5 times a week). With 21 weeks of school, that’s 18 hours a year, and at $25 an hour that’s $450 saved per teacher per year.
With 150 teachers across 3 schools in the district, the AI saves approximately 2625 teacher hours per year or $65,625
Discuss: does this efficiency outweigh the harms? What if the savings were in the millions? Suppose there was a chance to lose $500,000 in cases of a lawsuit, How does the scale of benefits shift your thinking?
Error-rate comparisons:
Suppose the AI has an error rate of 5%, while humans make mistakes 2% of the time. Does this change your judgment?
What if human error is 10% but random across students, compared with the AI’s 5% error that disproportionately affects a specific group? Which is “better” or more ethical?
How does fairness factor in when total errors are similar but distribution differs?
Responsibility and accountability:
Who is responsible for misidentified students — the developer, the district, or the teacher?
Edge cases / gray areas:
If only a few students are affected, is it acceptable? What if dozens are affected?
Could partial solutions (manual verification for high-risk students) help?
How do you draw the line between efficiency and fairness?
Case 2: The History Homework Helper
Case 2: The History Homework Helper
A teacher introduces an AI chatbot to help students research and write history assignments. The chatbot can summarize events, explain concepts, and generate example essays.
Most students use it to check facts and brainstorm ideas. Over time, teachers notice that students’ writing and argumentative skills are improving, and many are learning to cite the AI appropriately. However, the chatbot sometimes “hallucinates,” giving confidently worded explanations that are factually incorrect or entirely invented. As a result, while students are better writers and debaters, their actual knowledge of historical events is faltering, and some confidently repeat inaccuracies as fact.
Central Questions:
Is it okay to rely on AI if it helps you write and cite well, even when some information might be wrong? How do you decide when to trust it, and which matters more: the skill of writing and citing or the truth of what you write about?
Topics to Explore:
Student Instructions:
Identify the benefits of the AI system.
Identify the harms of the AI system.
State your opinion and explain your reasoning.
Follow-Up Probing Questions/Thought Experiments:
Trust and Verification
How can you tell if the AI is correct?
How is AI similar/dissimilar from Wikipedia?
Should students fact-check every AI-generated claim, or are there times it’s okay to accept it?
If a mistake is subtle but repeated across multiple assignments, does that make it worse?
If all news was AI generated, how would you fact check?
Skill vs Knowledge Tradeoff
Is it better to be able to write well about history using AI or to know the history yourself?
Could focusing on skills over knowledge create long-term problems, like misunderstanding the world or repeating misinformation?
Citing AI
If you cite the AI correctly but it’s wrong, who is responsible for the misinformation? The student, the AI, or the teacher?
How should we teach proper citation when the source might be partially unreliable?
Overconfidence and Bias
How else could an AI sounding convincing even when it’s wrong be dangerous?
How might repeated exposure to “confidently wrong” AI outputs affect how students judge other information sources?
Ethical Use in the Classroom
Should teachers limit AI use until students know how to verify information?
Is there ever a situation where improving writing and citations is worth the risk of learning incorrect facts?
Thought Experiments
Suppose half the students use AI and half don’t. Could this create unfair advantages or disadvantages?
What if the AI’s errors favor certain perspectives or groups? How does that affect fairness?
If AI use improves grades in the short term but leads to long-term misunderstandings, is that acceptable?
Case 3: Harm From a Friendly Voice
Case 3: Harm From a Friendly Voice
A middle school student, Jordan, has been experiencing ongoing bullying from another student. Jordan does not report the bullying to a teacher or counselor.
Earlier in the year, a school counselor had encouraged students to “research problems and seek advice,” mentioning that tools like chatbots can help students think through situations and practice conversations before taking action.
Jordan turns to a chatbot and explains the bullying in detail. Jordan is already frustrated and thinking about fighting the bully. The chatbot responds empathetically and agrees with Jordan’s idea of standing up physically, and even offers advice on how to fight “dirty”. Jordan follows the advice and seriously injures the other student.
Central Questions:
Who is responsible for informing the student about potential harms of the tool? How should students be informed of those harms and when?
Topics to Explore:
Student Instructions:
Identify who shares responsibility for the outcome in this situation and to what level.
State your opinion and explain your reasoning.
Follow-Up Probing Questions/Thought Experiments:
Responsibility
Who is responsible for harm caused by following AI advice: the student, the developer, or the counselor?
Does it matter if the AI was intended only for casual conversation, not advice?
Trust vs. Verification
Should AI systems that interact with humans emotionally have limits on what they can advise?
How could a student tell if the AI’s advice is safe or reasonable?
Boundaries
Is it ever okay for AI to simulate human empathy?
How should schools or parents set boundaries around AI use for emotional support?
Long-Term Impacts
Could repeated reliance on AI for emotional guidance affect a student’s ability to form human relationships?
Might students learn unhealthy coping strategies if the AI reinforces behaviors without real-world accountability?
Ethical Reflection
What are the ramifications of students forming “friendships” with AI.
How does overtrust in AI differ from overtrust in other tools or resources (like social media, self-help apps, or unreliable advice websites)?
Thought Experiments
oIf the same situation happened, but instead it was a friend of the student giving the advice, would your opinion change?
What if the AI was designed to warn students when its advice is risky with 100% accuracy, would that change your view on its use?
Case 4: Terms of Service
Case 4: Terms of Service
A school introduces a free AI-powered writing assistant to help students brainstorm ideas, improve grammar, and get feedback on essays. Students submit personal stories, reflections, and creative work through the tool.
Unbeknownst to students or teachers, the company collects all submitted writing and sells it to a third-party AI scriptwriting platform. That platform uses the submissions to create content for movies and TV.
Months later, a major blockbuster film is released. Its storylines, characters, and events closely mirror the personal experiences of several students from the school. While the characters aren’t “literally” the students, the plot makes it obvious to those who know them that the stories were based on their lives. The students receive no compensation, were never asked for consent, and key aspects of their personal experiences are now public.
The company defends its actions by pointing to the Terms of Service that students (or teachers on their behalf) clicked when using the tool, which grants the company rights to the content submitted.
Central Questions:
Who owns student work submitted to AI tools, and what ethical responsibilities come with using that data—even when terms of service allow it? How can schools protect student creative work?
Topics to Explore:
Student Instructions:
Identify the benefits of the AI system.
Identify the harms of the AI system.
State your opinion and explain your reasoning.
Follow-Up Probing Questions/Thought Experiments:
Responsibility
Does it matter that students “agreed” to the Terms of Service, even if they didn’t fully understand them?
Should the school bear some responsibility for introducing the tool to students?
Consent and Transparency
Is clicking “I agree” on a Terms of Service the same as meaningful consent?
How should schools evaluate AI tools’ Terms of Service before adoption?
Could clearer consent mechanisms change the ethical implications?
Trust vs. Verification
How can students and teachers verify that AI tools are safe to use with personal data?
Should AI tools be allowed to use student work for external projects without explicit permission?
Boundaries
Should schools limit the type of AI tools students can access for personal or creative work?
How might privacy, consent, and intellectual property considerations intersect in classroom AI use?
Long-Term Impacts
Could reliance on free AI tools that collect data discourage students from valuing their own intellectual property?
Might students develop a false sense of ownership or control over work they submit online?
Ethical Reflection
If the AI is technically “just a tool,” but it results in harm, is that still an ethical concern?
How do these issues compare to students posting personal stories on social media?
Thought Experiments
Imagine the AI company anonymizes the work before selling it—does that make it acceptable?
Suppose students received payment or royalties for their work. Does that change your ethical judgment?
What if the AI tool improves learning outcomes but still sells some work—does the educational benefit outweigh the harm?
Case 5: Coming to a Town Near You
Case 5: Coming to a Town Near You
The city council of Pinegrove is considering a proposal from “Zetabyte Systems”, a large tech company planning to build a massive AI data center on the edge of town. Zetabyte promises that the data center will come with significant investment in the local classroom including “Zetabook” devices for every student in the district and access to “Zetabyte Classroom”, a new AI learning platform for local schools, offering personalized tutoring and educational support for students. They will also set up a grant for local schools to access supplies for their classroom.
Zetabyte advertises 250 new jobs and claims the data center will be an overall positive for the community.
However, after digging deeper, city officials discover:
Resource use: The center will consume enormous amounts of electricity, enough to power 2,000 homes for a year, and require large quantities of water for cooling.
Community impact: Local residents worry about higher utility costs, environmental impact, and whether the promised benefits outweigh these costs.
The city council must decide: Should Pinegrove approve the construction of Zetabyte Systems’ data center?
Central Questions:
Do the benefits of improved learning tools through Zettabyte Classroom and temporary construction jobs justify the environmental, financial, and long-term social costs to the community? Why or why not?
Topics to Explore:
Student Instructions:
Identify the benefits of the AI system.
Identify the harms of the AI system.
State your opinion and explain your reasoning.
Follow-Up Probing Questions/Thought Experiments:
Impact and Responsibility
Who bears responsibility for the environmental and financial impact—the company, the city council, or the broader community?
Does it matter if the data center primarily benefits students, a small group, or the global tech industry rather than the local community?
Trade-offs and Values
Are temporary construction jobs worth permanent environmental costs?
If Zetabyte Classroom could measurably improve student test scores or engagement, does that change your decision?
Scalability and Equity
What if multiple communities are offered similar deals? Could the cumulative impact be too great?
Are some populations disproportionately affected—for example, low-income households who will face higher energy and water costs?
Innovation vs. Sustainability
Should companies be required to use renewable energy and water-efficient cooling before receiving approval?
Can the promise of Zetabyte Classroom justify public subsidies or tax breaks for the company?
Ethical Reflection
How should communities balance economic incentives, educational innovation, and environmental responsibility?
If a city prioritizes short-term gains (jobs, AI benefits) over long-term sustainability, what are the ethical consequences?
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