6.1.4. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI in education is already applied in many parts of the world. It is expected that AI in US education will grow by 47.5% from 2017-2021 according to the Artificial Intelligence Market in the US Education Sector report (Research and Markets, 2017). Even though most experts understand the presence of teachers to be irreplaceable, AI can prove to be valuable for enhancing a teacher’s job and supporting educational best practices.  AI has the benefit of  being employed for personalising learning for each student; with the employment of the hyper-personalization concept which is enabled through machine learning, the AI technology is incorporated to design a customised learning profile for each individual student and to tailor-make their training materials, taking into consideration the mode of learning preferred by the student, the student’s ability and experience on an individual basis (Liou et al, 2017). In this process, however, Big Data and the cost produced by AI innovations pose new questions for education stakeholders (Vincent-Lancrin and Van der Vlier, 2020). These are questions about who — which body or organisation — should take responsibility for regulating AI in education, particularly since AI impacts not only data protection and privacy, but also fundamental rights in general. Researchers such as Berednt et al (2020, p.1), for example, go as far as to suggest that “given AI’s global impact, it should be regulated at a trans-national level, with a global organisation such as the UN taking on this role”. Another question regarding AI revolves around the financial impact of utilising such a technology in education. AI does not usually come cheap. In fact, when combining installation, maintenance, and repair fees, it can be rather expensive. Therefore schools or students with minimal funds may not be able to benefit from AI fully. Definitely, these elements cannot be overlooked but at the same should not be viewed as unsurpassable.