On August 29th, I was grateful to TENZ for receiving the Teachers’ Choice Professional Learning & Development Grant to attend and deliver a speech at the Diplosphere conference, on the theme: “Images of the Future: Daily Life in a World Governed by AI”. 

The conference convened speakers across different sectors of society, including business leaders, healthcare professionals, agricultural specialists and politicians, including Ginny Andersen, the Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications, Chlöe Swarbrick MP and Judith Collins MP. The keynote speaker for the day was Gerard de Graaf, the EU’s Special Senior Envoy for Digital to the Silicon Valley, who gave his insights into the developments occurring in Silicon Valley and offering his insights into how the AI landscape might develop in the near future.  

Despite a panel session on education, work and productivity, there was a notable shortage of voices from education. My speech attempted to address this gap by pinpointing how schools and teachers can respond to the emergence of AI technologies capable of influencing work, culture and social life. While there is much hyperbole surrounding AI, I argued that, in the near future at least, humans are not going to be replaced by AI but instead they are going to be replaced by humans who can use AI. Accordingly, students need to learn to work with AI and to do this effectively, students need a clear understanding of the benefits and limitations of AI. 

Other voices on the education panel were perhaps more sceptical of education’s capacity to prepare learners for an AI-mediated future. However, if greater attention is given to the digital technologies curriculum, education can facilitate the development of learners capable of working with AI. This can be done, firstly, by generating an understanding of AI and its impact across society; by emphasising humans’ capacity to take into consideration a multitude of different perspectives and agendas; and, finally, by emphasising criticality alongside optimism. 

The overall consensus from the conference was that it is important to avoid framing understanding of the real world through digital technologies. This is a sentiment that teachers across the curriculum can engage with if given the freedom to examine both the technical understandings of AI operating systems and how these operating systems shape the world that we live in.