AI has potential to transform lives, but poses a threat if mishandled: UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education

Artificial intelligence It is a technology that has the potential to transform human life in profound ways, much like the discovery of fire, but also poses significant risks if mishandled, he said. Stefania Giannini, UNESCODeputy Director General of Education of the .

In an interview with PTI from Paris, Giannini, who is also Italy’s former Education Minister, said that each technological revolution has had broad social and educational implications, radically changing the way we live and learn.

She pointed out that the digital divide Inequality in countries is still very deep and new technology, if not driven and supported by appropriate investments, will widen this gap.

“Throughout my career, I have witnessed at least four digital revolutions: from the arrival of personal computers to the expansion of the Internet, the emergence of mobile devices and social networks and the rapid and unexpected arrival of intelligence generative artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT,” he said.

Giannini said each technological revolution has had broad social and educational implications, radically changing the way we live and learn. Although not all people or all countries have felt these technological revolutions in the same way, everywhere the new worlds they create have been sources of both hope and concern, he added.

Noting that AI has been compared to the discovery of fire, he said that, like fire, AI offers both benefits and potential dangers.

It can transform our lives in remarkable ways, both individually and socially, from schools to healthcare, work and transportation, but, like fire, if mishandled, it can pose major threats, Giannini said. According to the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, technology is never ideologically neutral and new AI models and applications are no exception. AI applications like ChatGPT generate new data from the vast amount of information available online, raising fundamental questions about human knowledge, education and learning, he said.

“As AI continues to undermine our collective intelligence and soon surpasses human capabilities, as experts now maintain, we will still have the tools to control and direct technology for the benefit of humanity,” he added.

Giannini stated that AI cannot be classified as good or bad when it comes to education.

He emphasized the need for governments and international bodies to establish strong frameworks to regulate AI in education, as its end users are schools, students and teachers.

Speaking about the challenges of using AI in the education system, Giannini said, first of all, what content and curricula are appropriate for the digital age.

“The second pressing issue is assessment systems. How will we assess learning outcomes? Exams that were once ‘unhackable’ are now easily hackable with AI applications. This raises difficult ethical questions, which have risen alongside with heated debate over the future of assessment, as students around the world use AI for their assignments.

“Should schools and universities try to block their use? Or should we transform assessments to focus on presenting and supporting ideas and arguments with evidence?” she posed. According to Giannini, the main question is whether the schools of the future will need teachers or how AI tutors will change the work of teachers.

In 2023, UNESCO published the first “Guide to Generative Artificial Intelligence in Education and Research”, proposing key actions for government agencies to regulate GenAI based on safety and suitability for teaching and learning.

Proposed actions include: obligation to protect data privacyespecially for children; update copyright laws for the age of artificial intelligence and set age limits for use Generative AI.

According to Gianni, this leads to the question of what skills are needed in the digital age? While technical skills in computer programming, data science and software engineering will continue to be relevant in the future. Paradoxically, however, as AI becomes more sophisticated and easier to use, the need for specialized technical skills may decrease, he said.

With generative AI, anyone can write a Shakespeare sonnet, program software, compose a violin concerto or edit a photograph, he said, adding that the quality of the results will depend on one’s ability to interact with the technology.

In this context, technical skills may no longer be essential, while cognitive and socio-emotional skills to interrogate the machine by asking the right questions will be critical, he added.