As the White House has signed an executive order making K–12 computer science and AI education a national priority, it is important to consider the ethics of implementing AI in education and the value of educating students on it in the first place.

The question as to whether artificial intelligence is a danger to the critical thinking of students or a tool to be used for a more well-rounded learning experience also needs answered.

The impact of AI will only continue to grow in the field of education as the intelligence systems continue to develop.

AI implementation in the classroom could potentially have many positive, effective benefits.

AI can be used to personalize learning through using analytics to give insight into a student’s performance and the ways that they learn best.

It can also provide students with immediate feedback, helping students to see their strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to adapt and to focus on these.

Implementation of AI in the classroom can result in more inclusive lessons with tools that offer text-to-speech, visual recognition and speech recognition to allow all students to have a more equal learning experience and opportunity.

It can also provide greater access to resources that enhance the learning that takes place in their classrooms, making abstract concepts more easily accessible and understandable, as well as foster critical thinking in the natural intrigue of artificial intelligence.

According to Harvard graduate school of education, educators need to stop pretending that AI doesn’t exist. Students are well aware that technologies such as ChatGPT exist and are already experimenting with them on their own,, but they need guidance from adults and educators about how to use them ethically and responsibly.

With these advantages come major downsides to the implementation of artificial intelligence in the classroom that must be weighed against the positives.

With AI comes privacy and security concerns about how carefully the user’s data is stored and how protected it is from being leaked. Opponents to AI worry about having private and sensitive information viewed by others, having false or misleading information disseminated and the increasing ease others have in accessing others’ personal data.

AI algorithms also have potential biases towards non-English-speaking students, who may be falsely accused of cheating, undermining their academic career and motivation to learn. One study shows over half of non-native English writing samples were misclassified as AI generated, while the accuracy for native English speakers was nearly perfect.

Learning through AI has potential to greatly reduce the teacher-to-student interactions and relationships and take away from the social-emotional aspects of learning. Students’ social skills and interpersonal development could greatly suffer in a system with diminishing human interaction in the classroom.

With AI, students have easy access to cheating and plagiarism, undermining the entire learning process for all students involved. Students should not be learning cheats and shortcuts to get them through the world, rather should be relying on the value of education that they acquire from putting forth effort in school. Measures need to be in place to ensure that AI is not being used unethically.

Ultimately, AI is only as good as the algorithm for which it is based. If the data it draws from is inaccurate or biased, the data it creates will be as well. This serves as a major danger for the spread of inaccurate or biased information as the truth. Students need to be able to think critically about the information they take in, rather than accepting everything they see at face value.

Educators and administrators need to weigh the pros and cons of AI in education as they address how they and their students will use the technology.

By understanding the beneficial ways that AI can be used, while attempting to educate and avoid the negatives that come along with it, AI could have a positive impact on learning and development on students across the world. The question remains as to whether the positives outweigh the negatives– if AI will lead to better equality of opportunity for all students across the nation, even the globe. Only the future will decide the eventual fate of AI in education and how it develops the world into potentially a new age of technology.