new ideas about ‘artificial intelligence’ and ‘cognitive computing systems’ in education have been advanced by major computing and educational businesses. How might these ideas and the technical developments and business ambitions behind them impact on educational institutions such as schools, and on the role of human actors such as teachers and learners, in the near future? More particularly, what understandings of the human teacher and the learner are assumed in the development of such systems, and with what potential effects?
The focus here is on the education business Pearson, which published a report entitled Intelligence Unleashed: An argument for AI in education in February 2016, and the computing company IBM, which launched Personalized Education: from curriculum to career with cognitive systems in May 2016. Pearson’s interest in AI reflects its growing profile as an organization using advanced forms of data analytics to measure educational institutions and practices while IBM’s report on cognitive systems makes a case for extending its existing R&D around cognitive computing into the education sector.