Artificial intelligence in the classroom: where’s the humanity?

Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas Festival 2019.

A recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas festival on Saturday 2 November 2019.

Could artificial intelligence (AI) transform education? Schools are already tentatively exploring ‘adaptive learning’ applications, which identify gaps in a student’s knowledge and build personalised quizzes. Sir Anthony Seldon, author of The Fourth Education Revolution, argues that by taking care of the mechanical aspects of education, AI can free up teachers to focus on creativity and problem-solving. What might this mean in practice and what do teachers make of the idea that our schools are churning out ‘robot-like’ workers? What, if anything, is uniquely human about being a teacher and how important are the relationships between teacher, pupil and subject?

SPEAKERS

CARLA AERTS
director, Tmrw Institute; former director of futures, Institute of Education, UCL; global digital director, Cambridge University Press Education

DONALD CLARK
EdTech entrepreneur; CEO, WildFire; board member, Cogbooks and LearningPool

JEN PERSSON
director, defenddigitalme; campaigner for safe, fair and transparent use of children’s data in the classroom

GARETH STURDY
functional skills teacher, LHAA; education and science writer; former project coordinator, Physics Factory

CHAIR: HARLEY RICHARDSON
organising committee, AoI Education Forum