*Intro*

The Covid-19 pandemic forced schools to implement adaptive measures and accommodate student’s educational needs via online and AI-based learning techniques. Specifically, schools employed technologies like video-teaching (Zoom), centralized resource hubs (Canvas), and automated response systems (WordTune? ) to teach lessons and track student progress. Chatbots like Open AI’s ChatGPT? , Amazon’s Echo Dots, Microsoft’s “Shiksha,” and other tools integrate AI into teacher-student relationships. These technologies and future developments will continue to revolutionize education around the globe to increase productivity, personalize the learning experience, and shift traditional student-instructor dynamics for better or for worse. In this paper, I discuss the current forms of AI education (AIEd), analyze their derivative pros and cons, and consider future developments in AI that will affect education. my findings constitute a commentary on the potential for AI to replace traditional educational systems with AI-assisted teaching. Based on my findings, I contend that AI could reduce the significance of educational instructors’ roles and compromise the development of interpersonal skills in students.

*Learner-Instructor Interactions: How AI impacts dynamics between instructors and students. *

In school, students exchange information and knowledge through interaction and construct new knowledge from this process. Scholars classify these interactions into three types of online learning: i) learner-content; ii) learner-learner; and iii) learner-instructor. This paper focuses on learner-instructor (L-I) interactions because they have a “significant impact on students’ satisfaction and achievement in online learning. L-I interactions positively influence student motivation, learning, and retention in online courses. Communication, support, and presence are the most important factors in improving students’ achievement. Furthermore, Kyuongwon Seo, Joice Tang, and their colleagues tested the significance of AI-assisted teaching on L-I interactions via the speed dating research method. In speed dating, researchers present participants with various hypothetical scenarios via storyboards. Then, researchers interview participants to understand their immediate reactions to AI systems and examine the impact of those systems on learner-instructor interactions. Furthermore, Seo and her colleagues recruited 12 students with 11 different majors and a minimum of 1 year in a university-level institution. Next, they recruited 11 instructors that teach nine different subjects with at least 3 years of teaching experience. Both the students and instructors participated in at least three months of online learning/teaching due to COVID-19. After conducting the study, Seo and her colleagues found that the participants believe AI systems in online learning can enable personalized learner-instructor interaction at scale but at the risk of violating social boundaries. Their concerns stem from privacy invasions and risks for data breaches. Additionally, participants were concerned that AI systems could create responsibility, agency, and surveillance issues in online learning. Below, I’ve included the pros and cons associated with AIEd and the learner-instructor relationship.

A. Pros: Support, Efficiency, Accessibility & Affordability

Overall, AI tutoring systems can provide personalized guidance, support, or feedback by tailoring learning content based on student-specific learning patterns of knowledge levels. AI teaching assistants can help instructors save time answering students’ simple repetitive questions in online forums, and instead instructors can dedicate their saved time to higher-value work. AI analytics also allow instructors to understand students’ performance, progress, and potential. Furthermore, all twelve students felt that AI could help them work to their strengths, mainly in instructor-independent activities like studying and group projects. Ten out of eleven instructors expressed approval towards AI-based suggestions and adaptive quiz systems. See Seo. These findings justify today’s global push for increased AI-involvement in education that. For example, in Bengaluru, India, the government and tech firms are entrenching AIEd in their education system. See Chandran. Their instructors work with Amazon Echo Dot speakers and Microsoft’s Shiksha chat bot to help teach students English, create lesson plan, activities, and assignments. Tools like Shiksha can “help teachers save up to 75% of the time they would otherwise spend on creating assignments” and direct their attention to individual student needs. Lingesh K, a teacher for a city-funded school, stated that “every child gets a chance to interact with the device” and that AI is “light on hardware, accessible, affordable, non-judgmental and suitable for a range of requirements.

B. Cons:

The concerns that teachers and students have regarding AI relate to surveillance, creativity, and data privacy. Some instructors believe that “ChatGPT’s inability to evaluate the relevance or accuracy information” may compromise the research skills of students. See Rudolph. AI systems can negatively impact a student’s ability to learn independently, solve problems creatively, and think critically. For example, “9/11 of the instructors in the Seo study were concerned that students could lose opportunities to learn new skills or learn from their mistakes” using AI teaching. See Seo. Furthermore, both students and instructors were concerned with the idea of being recorded and data security in AI-dominated educational settings. None of Seo’s findings touch on the mental and visual detriments that stem from AI-based teaching. For example, students and teachers need “face-to-face communication” to combat “loneliness, frustration, and depression. Excessive screen time can also detrimentally impact eye-health amongst students.

*The Future of AI in education *

The future of AI can potentially make up for today’s pitfalls like face-to-face interactions, information relevance, and critical thinking assistance. Squirrel AI, a Chinese AI tool, provides adaptive learning by adjusting itself automatically to the best method for individual students based on facial-recognition technology. See Seo. Additionally, AI body doubles can bring human interaction into the AIEd space and help teachers be multiple places at once. Creative Artists Agency, an LA talent agency, generates AI replicas (body doubles) of actors to place their faces on stunt doubles. This technology can dub an actor’s lines into any language too. Unfortunately, people could use these replicas to show world leaders “declaring war in any language” and generate enough human emotion to spark conflict. The potential for emotional connection stemming from AI body-doubles in education could close the gaps between AI-instructors and students that I analyzed in this paper. AI’s potential also calls for heightened regulatory scrutiny placed onto the industry to protect internet users from data mining.