This is quite a good article that explores a topic close to me. One core question I have is: when we say 'democratizing education' do we mean the same thing Dewey means? Michał Wieczorek makes a pretty good case, identifying four key tenets of Dewey's position (quoted): children learn about and negotiate the meaning of democracy; the skills, knowledge and dispositions necessary to participate in democratic processes; experience in democratic living and thinking together; and extending equally to all members of the democratic community. The other core question is: does AI education look like what Wieczorek describes? Here the case is not as strong, as the focus is on intelligent tutoring systems, "an extrapolation of the trends in educational technology dating back to Skinner's teaching machines." Wieczorek argues that "AI's focus on the mastery of curriculum might help students learn about democracy, but democratic education cannot be reduced to passive absorption of wisdom." Also, "mastery-based methods and objectives embedded in ITS are much less flexible and student-focused than participatory learning approaches... ossifying schools as places where knowledge is passed down hierarchically rather than co-created in a horizontal, participatory manner." All true, but these are arguments for a different direction in AI native education, not an argument against it altogether.
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