Time for a Pause: Without Effective Public Oversight, AI in Schools Will Do More Harm Than Good.

This makes it likely that the proprietary AI models of a few corporations will become the foundation for the vast majority of AI applications developed.53 Meanwhile, regulators and lawmakers will be left struggling to respond by creating a patchwork of after-the-fact regulatory protections.54 AI in Education Since the 1960s, scientists and technology companies have explored ways to apply AI in edu. [...] AI in Education (AIED) is a major field of research and development.55 The AI applications being promoted to schools today were preceded in the 1960s and 1970s by “In- telligent Tutoring Systems” and “Computer Assisted Instruction” systems.56 Since the early 2000s, researchers have gathered, stored, and analyzed massive quantities of educational data with the intention of informing institutional a. [...] On the contrary, the weight of the available evidence suggests that the wholesale adoption of artificial intelligence in schools poses a grave danger to dem- ocratic civil society and to individual freedom and liberty. [...] 19 In his Executive Order of October 30, 2023, President Biden charged the Department of Education as follows: To help ensure the responsible development and deployment of AI in the education sector, the Secretary of Education shall, within 365 days of the date of this order, develop resources, policies, and guidance regarding AI. [...] They shall also include the development of an “AI toolkit” for education leaders implementing recommendations from the Department of Education’s AI and the Future of Teaching and Learning report, including appropriate human review of AI decisions, designing AI systems to enhance trust and safety and align with privacy-related laws and regulations in the educational context, and developing educatio.