AI in Education: Opportunities and Risks
AI is rapidly changing the educational landscape, offering a range of tools and applications that can enhance learning for students of all ages. Key use cases and applications of AI in education, from K-12 through postgraduate programs have shown significant value. However, with transformative technology comes notable risks. Legal rights and restrictions impact the educational ecosystem in numerous ways. Ethical constraints and academic integrity are especially enhanced concerns in the world of AI. Assessing and preparing for AI readiness has proven to be essential. AI input and output in the educational community poses great risks of inappropriate data sharing and the generation of malicious or misrepresented content. Even fundamental pedagogy is being transformed by AI. Optimizing the value and minimizing the risks of AI is critical to successful adoption of AI in education. Guardrails in the implementation and use of AI in education is more critical than in most commercial settings.
Current Applications:
AI is not new to the education process. Students, teachers, and administrators have used AI applications for decades to improve efficiency, quality of learning, and scholarship. “Google it” is a common research phrase. Wikipedia, LexisNexis, Google Scholar, and other research platforms have revolutionized every level of education. AI has improved the goals of educating the world’s population when educators utilize its capabilities for the benefit of students.
Some of the more recent applications of AI in education include:
Personalized Learning:
Adaptive Learning Platforms: AI algorithms can analyze student performance and tailor learning pathways, pacing, and content to individual needs. This helps students learn at their own pace and focus on areas in which more support is needed.
Example: Khan Academy uses AI to personalize math practice, providing hints and feedback based on student responses.
A systematic review and meta-analysis found that adaptive learning platforms can lead to significant learning gains.
Intelligent Tutoring Systems: AI-powered tutors can provide personalized guidance, feedback, and support to students, simulating one-on-one instruction.
Example: Carnegie Learning's MATHia software uses AI to provide step-by-step guidance and feedback as students work through math problems.
Studies have shown that intelligent tutoring systems can improve student learning outcomes.
Automating Tasks:
Grading and Feedback: AI can automate the grading of objective assessments like multiple-choice tests, freeing up teachers' time for more meaningful tasks like providing personalized feedback and interacting with students.
Example: Gradescope uses AI to assist with grading assignments, providing feedback and identifying common errors.
Recent research on the impact of ChatGPT used in automated essay grading provides insight to the limited value and the risks. Due to inadequate training data and tendency of AI to “hallucinate” when generating answers for which it has no foundational source information, “educators beware”.
Administrative Tasks: AI can automate administrative tasks like scheduling, record-keeping, and communication, reducing the workload for teachers and administrators.
Chatbots can answer common student questions about deadlines, course requirements, and other administrative matters.
Chatbots can also generate malicious reponses to prompts engineered to achieve this outcome. Chatbots shape responses to the user’s input can and be influenced to generate harmful output to mislead users.
Enhancing Engagement and Motivation:
Gamification: AI can be used to create engaging and interactive learning experiences, incorporating game-like elements to motivate students and increase their interest in learning.
Example: Duolingo uses AI to personalize language learning, incorporating gamified elements like points, rewards, and leaderboards.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality: AI can power immersive learning experiences using VR and AR technologies, allowing students to explore virtual environments and interact with simulations.
Example: Google Expeditions uses VR to take students on virtual field trips to historical sites, museums, and other locations around the world.
In the field of healthcare, medical students can practice surgical procedures and develop case histories by dealing with virtual patients.
Identifying and Supporting Students at Risk:
Early Warning Systems: AI can analyze student data to identify students who are at risk of falling behind or dropping out, allowing for early intervention and support.
Example: Civitas Learning uses AI to identify students at risk and provide targeted support.
Personalized Support: AI can help connect students with the resources and support they need, such as tutoring, counseling, or academic advising.
Examples in Postgraduate Programs:
Research Assistance: AI tools can help postgraduate students with literature reviews, data analysis, and writing.
Personalized Feedback: AI can provide feedback on research proposals, dissertations, and other academic writing.
Networking and Collaboration: AI can connect postgraduate students with researchers and collaborators in their field.
Managing the Risks:
Ethical Concerns and Legal Compliance: It is important to address ethical concerns related to data privacy, bias, and the potential impact of AI on human interaction in education.
Pedogeological Challenges:
Teacher Training: Educators need training and support to effectively use AI tools in the classroom. AI cannot replace educators, but educators must learn how to benefit and maximize the pedagogical value of AI just like any other technology aid utilized over time.
Equity and Access: Ensuring equitable access to AI technology for all students is crucial. The digital divide between students with high social economic standing and the impoverished of this world has been accelerated by the power of AI in learning.
Plagiarism: “Cut and Paste” scholarship is an oxymoron. The ease of use and the difficulty of detecting shortcuts to “learning” is a challenge that diminishes academic integrity, critical thinking, and creates potential liabilities.
Deep Fakes: AI can generate false output indistinguishable from the authentic original
Misinformation: AI generates misinformation through its inability to identify reliable sources to support its output.
Disinformation: Malicious actors can manipulate AI output to provide false output intended to mislead users.
Confidential data sharing: LLMs learn and analyze for output from the data sets the have access to. These include training sets and the vast information constantly being added to their knowledge base from computer prompts
Code corruption and malicious acts: Bad actors can manipulate AI output by altering the computer code by which it functions and the output it generates to intentionally mislead.
Legal Liabilities:
This is an era when schools from K-12 through postgraduate programs are experiencing exploding liability due to legal responsibility imposed for misrepresentation, discrimination, harassment, and “negligent learning”. From judicial damage awards of $377 million in 2020 to $1.9 billion in 2023, education is no longer a risk-free endeavor. The bulk of the damage award liabilities and their growth over this time fall in the higher education arena. Deep fakes, factual misrepresentation and disinformation generated by AI play a significant role in this exploding liability landscape.
Conclusion:
Educational Institutions and school systems engaging in AI implementation can also improve the success of AI projects to overcome the 80% failure factor of most AI projects. Guardrail Technologies serves organizations with consulting services to perform readiness assessments, identify gaps in people skills, processes, and technologies tn provide roadmaps to expedite and minimize the costs of AI implementation.
The 20% of successful AI implementations reportedly enjoy a 350% return on investment. In this time of shrinking educational budgets and financial resources, AI projects to enhance learning distinguish educational institutions and school systems for their academic success and cost effectiveness.
Guardrail serves educational purposes through its products and services in many ways Guardrail Data Masker™ and Guardrail Prompt Protect™ helps ensure that private, protected, and confidential information is not shared with 3rd party AI applications. Protecting against misrepresentation and disinformation, Guardrail Fact Checker™ and Guardrail Code Analyzer™ provide access to original sources of narrative text and computer code to help ensure authenticity of AI generated output. The Guardrail Gateway Student Edition™ opens the door to responsible academic utilization of AI to improve learning and help enhance critical thinking.
AI holds immense potential for education, offering opportunities to enhance efficiency, improve learning, and address societal challenges. By navigating the legal landscape responsibly, fostering collaboration, and enhancing skills, the education services industry can position itself as a leader in the responsible development and deployment of AI, driving both growth and societal progress.
By carefully considering these factors and implementing AI strategically, educational institutions can leverage the potential to create more personalized, engaging, and effective learning experiences for all students at every level.
Without guardrails AI can be more expensive and less successful in meeting its intended purposes. Guardrail Technologies exists to help serve these needs.
