Topic: What happens to education’s central notions, like the notion of ”thinking” and ”learning”, in times of machine learning, intelligent systems and Chat GPT?
While the development of educational technology opens new possibilities for teachers’ daily practice, the public and academic discourse that follows this development challenges the meaning of central educational notions and practices: What is the role of teachers and schools when knowledge is widespread, still not equally available online? Is learning always an edu-tainable (i.e. educational and entertaining) practice of fun? What does it mean to learn and think as human beings, when AI discourses claim that machines learn and think, too, do they do the same as humans?
On the other hand, the political discourse in Western democracies, the Nordic included, asks human beings to act on the basis of calculation. Different options for personal and collective action are seen through the lens of calculating risks, benefits and profits for oneself, the workplace and the national communities. Are human’s political and social calculations comparable to technology’s calculations?
During this pre-conference, we invite to engage in rethinking the ethical, existential and political implications (Bildung) of the notions of “thinking” and “learning”. There are tendencies of reducing the human faculty of thinking, learning and judgment to a process that in essence is comparable to an algorithmic calculation-process – in which human thinking seems to be only a much less effective process, while other positions emphasis thinking and learning as abilities that are always embodied and relational.
How can the conditions for thinking and learning in both digital, physical and hybrid settings be understood philosophically and theoretically?
Program and Invited speakers:
Tuesday 5.3 2024
14.00 -15.30 Malin Ideland, University of Malmö: Google, AI and the end of the teacher? On commercial actors’ striving to make education fun again.
16.00-17.30 Kim-Erik Berts, Åbo Akademi Vasa: Why bother? Learning mathematics in the age of generative AI.
18.00 Dinner