On the other hand, the risks of bias

Why do you keep staring at the green light?” The AI tutor answered as Gatsby, giving her a response that was not only accurate, but elegant and contextual.5 Future students could use AI to talk to Anne Frank about her life, to Marie Curie about her scientific discoveries, and to Shakespeare about his plays.

For instance, a student can ask, “How do I solve for X?” to be reminded of the steps for solving an equation. A student can even ask, “What are some effective strategies for improving my essay writing?”

Errors. In addition to bias, artificial intelligence may generate misinformation. The data that AI draws from may have errors, be outdated, or spread misinformation. Neither students nor teachers

Bias. Artificial intelligence is only as knowledgeable as the information it has been trained on. If a program like ChatGPT is trained on biased information, then when a student asks it a question, they could get a biased response, which can perpetuate stereotypes and social inequalities. If a biased AI tool is used for grading, students could receive low grades based on their race or gender.2Errors. In addition to bias, artificial intelligence may generate misinformation. The data that AI draws from may have errors, be outdated, or spread misinformation. Neither students nor teachers should assume that information provided by AI is accurate.3Cheating. Students can use ChatGPT to write entire essays, answer quiz questions, or do their homework. Ironically, now there are AI programs that can detect AI writing to help teachers determine if their students are cheating. But sometimes those programs may falsely identify a student’s original work as plagiarism.Isolation. If students interact with a software program more than with a teacher, they can begin to feel disconnected and isolated. Their motivation and engagement may decrease, which could lead to an increase in dropout rates.4Jobs. Artificial intelligence has the potential to be a powerful learning tool. Some teachers worry that AI will replace them.Five pros of AI in educationAssistance. Teachers who’ve tried AI have found that it can help make their jobs easier, from coming up with lesson plans to generating student project ideas to creating quizzes. With assistance from artificial intelligence, teachers can gain more time to spend with their students.3Speed. If a student feels “stuck” while working on an assignment, artificial intelligence programs can provide immediate, helpful assistance if a teacher or caregiver isn’t available. For instance, a student can ask, “How do I solve for X?” to be reminded of the steps for solving an equation. A student can even ask, “What are some effective strategies for improving my essay writing?” and ChatGPT can offer advice and resources right away.Individualization. AI programs can help individualize learning opportunities for students. For instance, ChatGPT can quickly and easily translate materials to another language, making it easier for students who speak another language to understand assignments. ChatGPT can also revise materials so they are suitable for varying grade levels and tailor projects to suit students’ skills and interests.Context. In a 2023 TED Talk, Sal Khan, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, shared an example of an AI tutor that helped a student understand the symbolism of the green light in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The student asked the AI tutor to act as if it were the character Jay Gatsby and answer her question, “Why do you keep staring at the green light?” The AI tutor answered as Gatsby, giving her a response that was not only accurate, but elegant and contextual.5 Future students could use AI to talk to Anne Frank about her life, to Marie Curie about her scientific discoveries, and to Shakespeare about his plays.Personalization. Artificial intelligence can also personalize student learning. By analyzing student performance data, AI-powered tools can determine which students need support to improve their learning experience, and the best ways to help those students.6

Artificial intelligence has been around for decades. In the 1950s, a computer scientist built Theseus, a remote-controlled mouse that could navigate a maze and remember the path it took.1 AI capabilities grew slowly at first. But advances in computer speed and cloud computing and the availability of large data sets led to rapid advances in the field of artificial intelligence. Now, anyone can access programs like ChatGPT, which is capable of having text-based conversations with users, and organizations are using AI for everything from developing driverless cars to reading radiographs to setting airline prices.

60% of Educators Use AI in Their Classrooms AI tools for teacher and student support are growing in popularity. Our survey found that younger teachers are more likely to adopt these tools, with respondents under 26 reporting the highest usage rates.

The Most Common AI Cheating Methods Most of the teachers we surveyed have observed students using AI—particularly generative AI, which can compose essays and supply answers on demand—to cheat.

Educators Don’t Expect AI To Take Center Stage in Education Nearly all of the teachers we surveyed predict that artificial intelligence will continue to impact classrooms of the future. However, most don't envision it playing a central role.

For example, in May 2024, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Edu, a version of ChatGPT designed for higher education institutions. This iteration of the popular platform features enhanced security and privacy, does not use conversations and data to train Open AI models, and offers education-relevant capabilities such as document summarization and the ability for students and instructors to build and share customized GPT models.

Before we dive into AI’s function in the education space, let’s define this technology in general terms. Artificial intelligence allows machines to execute tasks that have traditionally required human cognition. AI-powered programs and devices can make decisions, solve problems, understand and mimic natural language and learn from unstructured data. OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT—a natural language processing chatbot—in the fall of 2022 brought AI to many people’s attention for the first time. However, AI tools have been part of the tech landscape for years. If you’ve ever played chess against a bot, consulted a virtual assistant like Siri or Alexa or even scrolled through your social media feed, you’ve already interacted with artificial intelligence.

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People are often already sometimes confused about the proper ethical treatment of non-human animals, human fetuses, distant strangers, and even those close to them. Let’s not add a major new source of moral confusion to our world.

Eventually, it might be possible to create AI systems that clearly are conscious and clearly do deserve rights, even according to conservative theories of consciousness. Presumably that would require breakthroughs we can’t now foresee. Plausibly, such breakthroughs might be made more difficult if we adhere to the Design Policy of the Excluded Middle, since the Design Policy of the Excluded Middle might prevent us from creating some highly sophisticated AI systems of disputable sentience that could serve as an intermediate technological step toward AI systems that well-informed experts would generally agree are in fact sentient. Strict application of the Design Policy of the Excluded Middle might be too much to expect, if it excessively impedes AI research that might benefit not only future human generations but also possible future AI systems themselves. The policy is intended only to constitute default advice, not an exceptionless principle.

Of course, many human beings and sentient non-human animals, whom we already know to have significant moral standing, are often treated poorly, not being given the moral consideration they deserve. Addressing serious moral wrongs that we already know to be occurring to entities we already know to be sentient deserves higher priority in our collective thinking than contemplating possible moral wrongs to entities that might or might not be sentient. However, it by no means follows that we should disregard the crisis of uncertainty about AI moral standing toward which we appear to be headed.

If consciousness liberals are right, then Robot Alpha, or some other technologically feasible system, really would be sentient. Behind its verbal outputs would be a real capacity for pain and pleasure. It would, or could, have rational, sophisticated, long-term plans it genuinely cares about. If you love it, it might really love you back. It would then appear to have substantial moral standing. You really ought to set it free if that’s what it wants! At least you ought to treat it as well as you would treat a pet. Robot Alpha shouldn’t needlessly or casually be made to suffer.

If advanced AI systems are designed with appealing interfaces that draw users’ affection, ordinary users, too, might come to regard them as capable of genuine joy and suffering.

Creating machine sentience might require only incremental changes or piecing together existing technology in the right way. Others disagree.10,11 Within the next decade or two, we will likely find ourselves among machines whose sentience is a matter of legitimate debate among scientific experts.

I would like you to act as an example generator for students. When confronted with new and complex concepts, adding many and varied examples helps students better understand those concepts. I would like you to ask what concept I would like examples of and what level of students I am teaching. You will look up the concept and then provide me with four different and varied accurate examples of the concept in action.

It is up to policymakers to establish clearer rules of the road and create a framework that provides consumer protections, builds public trust in Al systems, and establishes the regulatory certainty companies need fortheir product road maps. Considering the potential for Al to affect our economy, national security, and broader society, there is no time to waste.

Google's Project Tailwind is experimenting with an Al notebook that can analyze student notes and then develop study questions or provide tutoring support through a chat interface. These features could soon be available on Google Classroom, potentially reaching over half of all U.S. classrooms. Brisk Teaching is one of the first companies to build a portfolio of Al services designed specifically forteachers-differentiating content, drafting lesson plans, providing student feedback, and serving as an Al assistant to streamline workflow among different apps and tools.

Teaching assistants. Al might tackle some ofthe administrative tasks that keep teachers from investing more time with their peers or students. Early uses include automated routine tasks such as drafting lesson plans, creating differentiated materials, designing worksheets, developing quizzes, and exploring ways of explaining complicated academic materials. Al can also provide educators with recommendations to meet student needsand help teachers reflect, plan, and improve their practice.

ChatGPT 4.0. The newest version of ChatGPT, which is more powerful and accurate than ChatGPT 3.5 but also slower, and it requires a paid account. It also has extended capabilities through plugins that give it the ability to interface with content from websites, perform more sophisticated mathematical functions, and access other services. A new Code I nt erp reter feature gives ChatGPT the ability to analyze data, create charts, solve math problems, edit files, and even develop hypotheses to explain data trends.

Over the last year, developers have released a dizzying array of Al tools that can generate text, images, music, and video with no need for complicated coding but simply in response to instructions given in natural language. These technologies are rapidly improving, and developers are introducing capabilities that would have been considered science fiction just a few years ago. Al is also raising pressing ethical questions around bias, appropriate use, and plagiarism.