What concerns SHOULD we be discussing about using AI in Education?

Educators, professional development providers, and educational leaders are urged to act as critical consumers of AI products and services, resisting quick adoption until ethical dimensions, risks, and problems are fully investigated. The STEM Teaching Tool emphasizes the need for deliberative and ethical approaches to AI in education, highlighting concerns such as environmental harms, profit-driven motives, and homogenization of culture. Students should have the right to question, explore, resist, or responsibly use AI to support individual, social, and ecological flourishing.

STEM Teaching Tool 109 -- Topics: Instruction http://stemteachingtools.org/tgs/Instruction Equity http://stemteachingtools.org/tgs/Equity TeachClimate http://stemteachingtools.org/tgs/TeachClimate What concerns SHOULD we be discussing about using AI in Education? Educators should act as critical consumers and users of AI products and services http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10908b in this moment of hype and promotion http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10909b . As cultural stewards, they should help all students learn how to critically and ethically deliberate on the use of AI. Professional Development Providers should support teachers in the informed and responsible adoption of AI systems. Educational Leaders should resist quick adoption of AI systems http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10910b until ethical dimensions http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10911b , risks, and problems have been investigated and resources are in place to support refusal or slow, responsible use. What Is The Issue? With the expanding use of different kinds of artificial intelligence AI systems http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10902b in society and in education http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10903b , it is vital that educators and administrators stop and make time to explore the range of social and ethical concerns posed by these technologies http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10904b . AI in Education is a quickly evolving landscape with various promising potential benefits http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10905b , and yet the educational and social implications are too high to not act in a deliberative and ethical manner http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10906b . Many believe the risks of generative AI outweigh the benefits http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10946b . Students have the right to question, explore, resist, refuse, or learn how to responsibly and ethically use AI in their lives to support individual, social, and ecological flourishing http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10907b . Authors: Philip Bell | JUNE 2026 Reflection Questions - Are you intentional and cautious http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10951b in how you explore, resist, or use AI? What ethical ideas http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10952b and frameworks http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10953b guide your use? - Do the tools do the disciplinary thinking for students, or are they designed to make them think more ? How do you help students to http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10954b ? Do you always evaluate online info only use tech when it advances teaching and learning? - With the opportunities http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10955b & risks http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10956b of AI, when should we use it? AI bots ignore evidence. Should we trust them with science? http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10957b Things To Consider There are a range of social and ethical concerns about AI to deliberate on: Overarching Concerns about the AI Political Economy and Social Power 1. Significant environmental harms http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10912b include massive water use http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10913b , supercharging carbon emissions http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10914b , ecological disruptions http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10915b , increased air pollution http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10916b , and negative impacts http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10917b of quickly expanding data centers http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10918b 2. Profit seeking http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10919b and market capture motives http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10920b of “AI in education” companies can reduce education to a for-profit commercial product 3. Homogenization of culture, thought http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10921b , and knowledge http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10922b through linguistic privileging http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10923b , cultural bias http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10924b ; Global North data bias http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10925b ; narrowing and flattening of curriculum, assessment http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10926b , and educational goals 4. “Move Fast & Break Things” approach can jeopardize education’s social contract with the public, violate the protective purpose of schooling http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10927b , disrupt improvement efforts & impair social relationships http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10928b Harms that Occur During AI Model Development and Training 5. Intellectual property has been stolen for the training of AI models http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10929b 6. Unfair labor practices have been documented in “digital sweatshops” http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10930b as well as significant psychological harm http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10931b to AI content moderators http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10932b 7. “Baked-in” biased responses in AI models http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10933b can produce regressive and marginalizing responses http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10934b e.g., that are racist, sexist, xenophobic During Use by Students, Teachers, and Educational Leaders 8. Falsehoods are promoted as true http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10935b i.e., hallucinations http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10970b and misinformation and disinformation are shared through AI systems http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10936b 9. Adverse health impacts on young people http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10937b e.g., impacts on mental health and youth suicide must be considered and countered 10. Disruption of social learning processes http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10938b , cognition, and social development http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10971b e.g., offloading learning tasks onto AI systems, diminished metacognitive engagement http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10939b , and diminished creativity http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10940b 11. Data privacy & student safety http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10941b can be compromised; put up a defense http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10942b During Use by Teachers and Educational Leaders 12. Deprofessionalization of teaching and ed leadership http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10943b by offloading tasks to AI systems and diminishing the need for human expertise 13. Encourages automation which is not a suitable replacement for human labor and jobs http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10944b ; education is a fundamentally human endeavor Attending to Equity Groups are exploring if AI can support educational equity http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10945b . However, the risks of using generative AI in education currently outweigh its benefits http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10946b . We all need to make room for ethical deliberation and informed decision-making http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10947b about AI in education since it is a “double-edged sword.” http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10948b - The negative impacts of AI use in society disproportionately impact http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10949b and non-dominant communities efforts are needed to promote equity http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10950b . Recommended Actions You Can Take Teach Based on a Social & Ethical Analysis - Teams of educators should engage with the 13 social and ethical concerns, reflect on them, and let it guide their teaching. - Learn how to teach against AI http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10958b and how to shape a more just sociotechnical future http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10972b . AI initiatives and products are outpacing discussion of responsible uses http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10959b . Use expertise on how people learn http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10960b and a “go slow and build” approach http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10961b to reduce harm. Design AI Uses with Students & Teachers Engage students with social and ethical concerns to collaboratively make sense of responsible engagement with AI http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10963b .- Teach: “Science and technology may raise ethical issues for which science, by itself, does not provide answers and solutions.” http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10962b - Educators should teach about the environmental and social impacts of AI systems http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10912b using ethical decision-making http://stemteachingtools.org/link/10947b . ALSO SEE STEM TEACHING TOOLS STEM Teaching Tools https://stemteachingtools.org content copyright 2014-22 UW Institute for Science + Math Education http://sciencemathpartnerships.org/ . All rights reserved. This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation NSF http://www.nsf.gov/ through Award 1920249 previously through Awards 1238253 and 1854059 . Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency. Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ . Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation NSF . Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.