Modern Education: (De)Actorization of Artificial Intelligence Systems in Education Process
Modern Education: (De)Actorization of Artificial Intelligence Systems in Education Process
Investments in human capital
Transforming education: new technologies changing education
Despite the optimistic statistics showing increased access to education through digitalization, modern education is facing big challenges not so much in the access to learning as in creating and maintaining motivation to learning, both within the walls of institutions and outside academic spaces [1]. Lack of motivation results not only in the unwillingness to fully process all the learning materials but also in the use of AI for educational tasks. As a multi-faceted phenomenon, motivation is impacted by many factors, one of which is definitely information overload. In other words, today’s society lives in the era of information abundance. A single individual only reads 1-3% of all the written materials of the Russian National Library in their lifetime, while the average daily consumption of information in the Internet is about 34 Gb (c. 100,000 words)[2]. This abundance not only means that one cannot process all the experience accumulated by humanity to date but also complicates the design of an individual learning path, because people live in information bubbles shaping their perception, desires and demands to new knowledge, as well as projected areas of its use.
Although it may seem that the problem arose with the creation of the so-called dotcoms and the promotion and general accessibility of technologies, the roots of it are deeper. The great German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote in his Faust [3]:
Wagner: Ah, God! but Art is long,
And Life, alas! is fleeting.
And oft, with zeal my critic-duties meeting,
In head and breast there’s something wrong.
How hard it is to compass the assistance
Whereby one rises to the source!
And, haply, ere one travels half the course
Must the poor devil quit existence.
These lines describe the aforesaid problem: despite the abundance of books (in other words, of information), we spend our lives in passing time rather than develop ourselves. The very perception of information has turned into imitation of the T. Veblen’s ‘leisure class’, in which one always aims not to become better than they were yesterday but to match the conventional ideals of leisureliness, filling the emptiness left in life by the absence of labour with reading and insignificant conversations.
In retrospect, the root of the problem lies far beyond the great German philosopher. In the classical age, education encompassed 5 to 7 disciplines (varying depending on the civilizational nod). Learning implied studying the most prominent, classic works. However, already an informational surplus has emerged as early as the 1st millennium BC. In China and the 15th century in Europe. In Europe, it was caused by Guttenberg’s printing revolution, and in China, by a big population, enough to inflate the bureaucracy that could spend time in creativity. As a result, learning gradually turned into a reading fetish and knowledge multiplication for reporting. The dotcom revolution only increased the scale of multiplication, not addressing the main issue – the need for constant processing of the ever-increasing information, engaging more and more human resources in ineffective labour, undermining student motivation, and raising the entrance threshold for the continuing education and retraining system.
A new technological revolution that has taken humanity decades – artificial intelligence – can drastically change the formats of education and our interaction with information, and thereby, the ways we spend our time. Previously, we used to look for information in a small number of hard-to-come-by books, then we made them publicly available in paper form, and later, in electronic one. Our search for information has been reduced to keywords. Today, with the right prompts (prompt engineering), it takes us minutes to extract the gist fr om a book that it would take us a considerable time to read, and we don’t even need direct access to its text. In this case, AI becomes not a tool but a direct actor of education.
Many great people, including Yu. Lotman and Jean-Paul Sartre, wrote that full-fledged direct processing of the original text is necessary and important, for a text is a completed thought in and of itself, contained in a certain physical form, the perception of which comes not from reading a synopsis but from reflecting over the whole text as a structure at the psychological (with oneself) and social (interacting with the author extratemporarily and conversing with likeminded people here and now) levels.
But let us not assume that the described set of problem will be solved any time soon. Like any inert system, an education system needs enough time resources for the necessary transformations and reactions to technological and sociocultural challenges. Online education, available since the 2000-s, has only become popular after its enforced introduction in 2020-2022. This phenomenon has not only attracted scientific interest to this area but also helped modernize it through market demand that has persisted even after the revolutionary necessity ceased to be one, because the habit of this technology had already become pervasive [4]. Therefore, by creating the right incentives, we could jointly address this challenge. However, it must be kept in mind that academic efforts and research seminars promoting AI technologies among the direct actors of education lead to situations wh ere teachers get used to generating instructions with the new technology, while students get used to following them also using AI. It is plain to see that it is the AI that becomes the learning actor here. Therefore, together with the authors of the White Book on AI, we need to set the rights outcomes for the education process [5].
This line of work is very important to the Russian Federation, because in the current difficult geopolitical situation the technological window may contribute a lot to reinforcing its geopolitical position. Russia’s broad network of partners, especially BRICS+, presents opportunities for promoting and developing Russian education, involving foreign students into education at Russian institutions, Today, BRICS+ is 3.7 bln people and 36.64% of the global GDP. On average, BRICS+ states spend 3 to 6% of their GDP on education [6]. The most educationally advanced BRICS+ countries, of course, already allocate their financial and human resources to these tasks, but Russia’s uniqueness in all aspects could become the key factor in effective integration of AI in education and its modernization, leading the process, and reaping the most benefits [7].
If the Russian Ministry of Education mobilizes financial and human resources to modernize its curricula integrating AI and shifting its position from actor to assistant (which it is supposed to be), these methodologies could become not only reputable but cost-effective, because the technologies could be exported to the education systems of the other BRICS+ states, engaging partner countries in the use of Russian AI systems (Yandex and Sberbank) and educational curricula.
What is meant by modernizing curricula and integrating AI? The current curricula are cluttered and oversaturated, which overwhelms the student. AI (like some technologies before it) has ‘barged’ into the learning process, disrupting effective teacheróstudent interaction by turning it into a teacherómediatoróstudent process. New AI-involving teaching methods must focus education on the obtention of basic knowledge, similar to a Renaissance, or even classical Ancient Greece education model. Assignments, including tests-assessments, must prevent the possibility of being done by AI alone as actor as much as possible, while also incentivizing the use of AI as a tool and enhancing student engagement in independent work on theoretical and practical assignments stimulating creativity. This educational methodology would also motivate teachers to participate in the educational process.
In other words, a system of education in the new reality must give students assignments that cannot be completed with a simple AI prompt that would make AI the actor. Rather, they should make students solve complex problems previously insolvable without AI. The content of education must thus become more complex for training way more skilled professionals.
Therefore, the right fundamental changes in education involving deactorization of AI would not only increase the effectiveness of education and support long-term motivation and interest in learning but also preserve the jobs of the people who have now been teaching nine to five, with low effectiveness. The new effective members of society will be active economic players creating demand for many goods of various categories and incentivizing businesses. The higher level of education will not only help address the country’s internal challenges but will make our big country attractive for various immigrants, bringing in more and more resources of different kinds.
References:
1. Nhawna Jain, Sunil Kumar Roy. Student Motivation in Online Learning. International Journey of Early Childhood Special Education, Vol 14, Issue 01, 2022, PP: 4339-4346. DOI:10.48047/INTJECSE/V14I1.540
2. M. Luppov. Features of Development of Cultural Consumption of Written Texts and Its prospects in a Technoscience Society. Revolution and Evolution: Development Models in Science, Culture and Society. (Луппов М.А. Особенности развития культурного потребления письменных текстов и его перспективы в обществе технонауки. Революция и эволюция: модели развития в науке, культуре, социуме: Труды IV Международной научной конференции, Нижний Новгород, 22–24 сентября 2023 года. – Москва: Межрегиональная общественная организация «Русское общество истории и философии науки», 2023. – С. 163-167)
3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Faust. (Иоганн Вольфганг Гете. Фауст [пер. с нем. Н. Холодковского]. М.: Издательство АСТ, 2016. – 544 с.) [Quote in English cited from: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14591/pg14591-images.html]
4. Shirley Bach. Online Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. New York: Open University Press, 2007. – 221 p.
5. The AI Ethics White Book (Белая книга этики в сфере Искусственного интеллекта [Онлайн доступ: https://ethics.a-ai.ru/assets/ethics_files/2024/12/11/ETHICS__10_12.pdf])
6. Yu. Goryachev. BRICS Countries of the World Map: Education Prospects (Горячев, Ю. А. Страны БРИКС на карте мира -перспективы образования. Этнодиалоги. – 2024. – № 3(74). – С. 76-96. – DOI 10.37492/ETNO.2024.74.3.004)
7. V. Klepatsky. Prospects and Challenges of AI Technologies Introduction in Higher Education. (Клепацкий, В. В. Перспективы и проблемы внедрения технологий ИИ в высшем образовании. Позиция. Философские проблемы науки и техники. – 2024. – № 22. – С. 134-139)
