With great power comes great responsibility

Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben may have been talking about the life of a superhero, but when considering the immense power that AI possesses, we can make the same analogy. While AI has evolved at an alarmingly fast rate, the aspect of responsibility and AI regulation has not entered the same rate of evolution. You would think that something so powerful, with so much potential for either good or bad, would be heavily regulated by being subjected to strict government regulation in the Western Hemisphere. However, this is not what we have been seeing. Unfortunately, we see governments who are moving slowly to create any meaningful regulation, attempting to create legislation for technology which evolves at a rapid pace. When the legislation finally takes place, it is five to ten years behind where our technology is today. The United States, for example, is looking at banning TikTok. This social media platform has been in existence for eight years. Regarding AI, the United States is creating procedures to evaluate the risks this technology could present. Even after the spoofing of President Biden‘s voice and its subsequent use for malicious phone calls, AI still remains relatively unregulated. This is concerning when it has the power to shift political power with a line of code. We do see moments where some are attempting to control the influence AI has on the future. The New York Times (among a few others) is currently suing AI companies for copyright infringement. We also see SAG and AFTRA strike a deal including regulations on the use of AI generation in the film industry. 

While I have an understanding of the potential benefits and drawbacks of AI, I also realize that educators need to attempt to begin that conversation with students. While my students view AI as mostly good – not entirely positive – there were very few who understand the drawbacks and detriments of this technology. With student assignments, I have been able to attempt to explore these potential dangers of AI with my students. We did this with a simple AI text-to-image generation activity. We explored how quickly we can create images that are seemingly real with AI, but we also discussed the dangers of being able to create seemingly real photos and the impacts they can have on someone’s life. It is obvious that AI is not going to disappear, so we need to prepare our students with the understanding of what this technology means and the appropriate digital citizenship we require while using it. 

However, AI can be a very useful tool. As an educator, I have used AI to create worksheets, help plan lessons and units, create permission forms, and use AI as part of student assignments. While I haven’t used AI in all aspects of my job, some of my colleagues have used AI to assess students’ work, create report card comments, and source plagiarism or AI generation in students’ assignments. Regardless of the regulation status of AI, I feel educators need to be educated regarding this technology. We need to attempt to disseminate some of the misinformation surrounding AI with our colleagues. It would allow other educators to have a better understanding of the benefits and dangers of the technology that students and other educators use daily. Not only would this create an environment where all educators and students receive better education on digital citizenship, therefore, advancing the field of educational technology. This means that teachers would need to continually have a working understanding of the ever-evolving field of technology. This is wildly time-consuming, and simply not a practical option for most educators, nor financially feasible for most school divisions. 

This ignorance about technology is also detrimental to our profession as educators. As I have outlined above, AI has helped me be a more efficient employee. However, as AI begins to improve and evolve into a more complex technology, educators have been concerned with AI intelligence replacing them in the profession. While these concerns are valid, education relies on human connection, critical thought processes, and creating empathetic citizens – all of which AI is unable to replicate, let alone teach. That being said, sometimes we are reminded of this potential, particularly when AI is already starting to evolve its ability to understand jokes. But the truth is AI is terrible at determining emotion based on facial recognition software. The consistent fear is that when AI can interpret our emotions en masse and interpret the level of comprehension in the room, educators will be removed. However, all technology articles that I have read argue this will never be the case. That it is actually political rhetoric and a misunderstanding of how complex the subject of emotions truly is. However, this future problem could affect some professions. How long will it be until some professions are deemed less efficient than AI and are replaced? AI does not need to sleep, eat, have smoke breaks, sick days, vacation time, health benefits, expense accounts, etc. It simply exists and continues to work until there is a software or hardware malfunction. AI will create a new world, and some of the professions will become extinct, but that does not mean that we will be ushered into the dystopian future of the Terminator franchise any time soon. The rise of the robot is not on the horizon any time soon. Even if CEOs of technology empires are concerned that AI will replace them. 

While the evolution of technology has always created uneasiness amongst the population, no technology has had the same level of potential to displace entire workforces as AI is threatening to. However, in the digital age, it is easier to disseminate a lack of trust in technology and exaggerate the advanced capabilities of AI and its impacts. At this point, we keep on asking ourselves “If we can create this technology evolution”. The question really should be “How should we create this technology evolution” or at least the realization that with this great power comes an even greater responsibility to ensure society is prepared for its impacts through responsible and timely regulation.