Alongside climate change, artificial intelligence seems likely to have one of the most substantial impacts on human life over the next 20-30 years. However, outside of computer science classes, artificial intelligence is rarely addressed at the secondary school level. There are obvious benefits to teaching programming and algorithm thinking to high school students, but it is also important that students consider the social, economic, and political implications of artificial intelligence (AI) in social studies classrooms. Although some of these topics are covered by AP Computer Science’s Impact of Computing standards (Big Idea 5), as with climate change, interdisciplinary coverage should allow students to more deeply engage with big questions about the implications of AI.
It wasn’t all that long ago that most Americans purchased their first smartphone. I got my first one about 11 years ago, and to say that smartphone ownership has changed our relationships with the world would be understating their impacts dramatically. Most young people have grown up in a smartphone world, but they often have not considered how this technology – and others – are changing our reality. Not only are we constantly connected to anyone we want to be, but also we are effectively walking around with a tracking device, microphone, and information machine at all times.
Although the idea of the cyborg has long seemed like the distant future, in effect smartphones have turned us into cyborgs. Smartphones are just scratching the surface of the current and future impacts of AI, so the question educators need to be asking is, how are we preparing students to participate in a world where AI fundamentally changes the way we interact with the world.
The first time I taught about AI was in the aftermath of the 2016 election, as students investigated the impact of Cambridge Analytica and targeted ad buys on swing voters. In the following years, targeted advertising, made possible by AI, has become a feature of political campaigns. Since then, I’ve also taught on cyber warfare, surveillance, predictive policing, bias, and a host of other topics related to the implications of AI. Students are curious about the implications of these technologies and fascinated by the questions raised by AI.
One challenge with teaching AI is that many educators don’t feel well informed about its current impact or possible future impacts. It is certainly an area that I am basically self-taught in, as our education systems are struggling to keep up with the rapid advancements in the field, and in preparing teachers to teach about these topics. Stanford’s Civic Online Reasoning program and the News Literacy Project are both steps in the right direction in terms of developing students’ ability to evaluate and analyze the information they find online, but neither directly engage the ways that AI targets ads and information to advertising profiles constructed by algorithms. And from what I can tell, although there are plenty of programs designed to introduce students to AI through programming are few resources for engaging students in deeper questions about the significance of these technologies, and their social, economic, and political implications.
So, where to start? First, and perhaps easiest, integrate discussion of AI into discussion of current issues in your classroom, and create space for students to discuss the implications of these technologies. Second, consider some background reading to build your capacity to understand the issues, and get you thinking about how you might integrate these issues into your curriculum. Some useful books I’ve been working my way through over the last year (in addition to the links above):
- The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Brian Christian explores many of the political and moral questions raised by AI
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff explores the impact of surveillance on democracy
- Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier argues that social media’s algorithms have become corrosive to society
- Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin discusses how AI perpetuates structures of discrimination
Those are just a few spots to get started. As with climate change, the only way to go completely wrong is to not engage this important issue at all.