In October 2024, the federal government released a 74-page AI "toolkit" designed to offer "critical guidance" for educators as they navigate the use of AI safely, ethically, and equitably – "especially for vulnerable and historically underserved populations." Just before the new year, The Hill reported that over the last four years, 2,500 teachers have undergone more than 71,000 hours of data science professional development (to include faster lesson plan creation); and 277 schools have added data science classes.
David Randall is research director at National Association of Scholars. He has reservations about the implementation of AI into education.
"Generally, it enables massive cheating – by students, by faculty, by everyone – such that you cannot safely assign any homework because you cannot know if what's being produced is real or out of a computer," he tells AFN.
Randall says the only way he can think of dealing with the inevitable cheating at this point is to require students to be taught honor and virtue.
"I think the downsides [of AI in education] are enormous," he warns. "An intelligent, ethical student possibly could use artificial intelligence well. But overwhelmingly, it's going to be used to cheat."
In March of last year, Randall wrote to propose what he labeled "Curriculum of Liberty" for American college students "which will educate [them] toward freedom, the pursuit of truth, and virtuous citizenship." Such a curriculum, he argued, will allow colleges to "teach virtue" and thus shape the character of their students.
"Students hunger to learn how to be good: if they are not offered wholesome instruction," he wrote, "they will swallow Woke poison."
