Uncritical Promotion of AI: Educators Should Know Better

 "...the critique of artificial intelligence is not a Luddite call to break machines, but a call to break harmful assumptions about machines and thus enable the construction of better tools and, more important, better societies." Joy Buolamwini, Umasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines

In the early 1800s the Luddites were laborers who took to breaking factory machinery when their jobs were dissolved when factory owners adopted machines such as mechanized looms and weaving equipment. They received the "anti-progress" label due to that opposition, but they ultimately engaged in a protest that would be natural for anyone whose lives have been upended by the total loss of their livelihood.

Like the AI equity researcher, Joy Buolamwini, I want to redefine the "Luddite Call to Break Machinery" to a call to "Break the False Marketing and Promo-Rhetoric" being circulated by those who should know better, K-12 and post-secondary educators. Of all people, these educators should not be leading the way to follow the marketing and promotional rhetoric of AI companies who stand to make a bundle off users and their data, as well as AI evangelists an, experts and promoters who stand to make tons of money and advance their careers off coaxing naive educators and educational leaders into hiring them for training and keynote speaking opportunities. Instead, educators should be leading the way in critically interrogating AI and its promo-rhetoric by arming themselves with critical thought.

Asking the tough questions is vital when these AI companies and their evangelists start spouting this rhetoric that presents the utilization of AI in the form of an "either-or" propositions. "You either teach students AI and use AI in your classrooms or become guilty of educational malpractice for not preparing your students for the future," they say. "Because AI is inevitable, you either use AI or become irrelevant," goes another of their so-called reasons...never mind there's absolutely no evidence of either, nor can there be because these are unsupportable predictions of a future no one can see to begin with.

Armed with critical thought, the educator can see for themselves that choosing to employ AI in the classroom is a choice and not an imperative. As a choice, it is perfectly legitimate and logical to abstain from using AI in one's teaching or life.

There is no reliable crystal ball saying that AI is going to be "revolutionary" and "disruptive" except the one the seers the Silicon Valley use, who make that claim for every new creation they spring upon the world.

There are logical reasons for choosing to abstain or to use, but to frame the whole argument as inevitable or imperative is deceptive and educators who do that should know better as well.

As for the relevancy argument? If it takes a machine to make you and your teaching relevant, I would ask a simple question: "Have you ever thought about whether what you are teaching in the first place is relevant to begin with?"