Europe, English

The report begins with an introduction to AI (what it is and how it works) and to the connections between AI and education: “learning with AI. In Part II, some key challenges for AI&ED are examined. These include the choice of pedagogy adopted by typical AIED applications, the impact of AIED applications on the developing brain and learner agency, the use of emotion detection and other techniques that might constitute surveillance, digital safeguarding, the ethics of AI&ED, the political and economic drivers of the uptake of AI in educational contexts and AIED colonialism.
In Part III, by exploring AI&ED through the lens of the Council of Europe’s core values – human rights, democracy and the rule of law – noting that currently there is little substantive relevant literature, as the Turing Institute’s report, commissioned by the Council of Europe, “Artificial intelligence, human rights, democracy, and the rule of law: a primer”(Leslie et al. 2021), identifying and cross-checking the pertinent issues for education.
With regard to human rights, the impact of AI&ED on a child’s rights to education is shown, to human dignity, to autonomy, to be heard, to not suffer from dis- crimination, to privacy and data protection, to transparency and explainability, to be protected from economic exploitation and to withhold or withdraw consent for their involvement with any technology. Iin Part IV, the report ends with a conclusion and provisional needs analysis of open challenges, opportunities and implications of AI&ED, designed to stimulate and inform further critical discussion. Anticipated needs include: the need to identify and act upon linkages across the Council of Europe’s work; the need for more evidence of the impact of AI on education, learners and teachers; the need to avoid perpetuating poor pedagogic practices; the need for robust regulation, addressing human rights, before AI tools are used in education; the need for parents to be able to exercise their democratic rights; the need for curricula that address both the human and technological dimensions of AI literacy; the need for ethics by design in the development and deployment of AI tools in educational contexts; the need to ensure that data rights and intellectual property rights remain explicitly with the learners; and the need for the application and teaching of AI in education to prioritise and facilitate human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Level of Education: School

Lead Organisation: European Council

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