Generative AI is fueling an existential crisis in education

here DecryptionWe’ve talked a lot about generative AI, which is a very big idea that causes quite a few problems. One thing we keep hearing about over and over again is that generative AI is causing a lot of problems in schools.

Many people – including many of this show’s listeners who email us – are concerned about the obvious problem: students using ChatGPT to cheat on assignments – and yes, some students definitely do.

But when our team went and looked into the story, we found that the issues with AI in education go much deeper, and relate to the philosophy of education itself.

the Decryption The team sat down and talked to a lot of teachers — you’ll hear many of their voices throughout this episode — and we kept hearing one common theme echoed from many of them: What are we really up to? a job here?

As you’ll hear one instructional designer say: “If this technology becomes more widespread, we’ll have courses created by AI, graded by AI, with student submissions created entirely by AI. So it begs the question: What are we doing here in higher education?”

Every teacher has a different experience with AI in the classroom and with their students, but the common denominator is that many of those experiences feel bad. A few teachers who spoke to us found tools like ChatGPT to help their workflow, but a definite majority faced those deep existential questions.

Fortunately, there are people whose job it is to be experts in education and educational technology, to research what is happening in a more detailed way. So I sat down with Dr. Adam Dube, from McGill University, to talk about how relevant generative AI is for education today, and where all of this could be headed in the future.

If you’d like to read more about what we discussed in this episode, check out these links:

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