NSWEduChat, a statewide genAI for public school students, will be rolled out in October, but an expert thinks it’s a ”Band-Aid” for a larger issue. Photo: Fran Innocenti.
The State Government is set to roll out its own generative artitificial intelligence (genAI) tool across all NSW public schools, but an expert is concerned the technology is being used as a “Band-Aid” solution and that such tools have racist and sexist biases.
NSWEduChat will be available to all Year 5 to Year 12 public school students from Term 4 (14 October), following two trials in 2024.
Students will only have access to special mode, which provides open-ended questions rather than direct answers. This is designed to guide and encourage students to think critically, unlike other genAI engines.
‘Flawed’ technology
Charles Sturt University senior lecturer Dr Jacqueline Tinkler warned AI was a “flawed technology” with questionable biases and regularly made mistakes.
A study found that five of the largest commercially available genAI engines frequently invoked outdated tropes to depict “Australianness”.
“It’s a Band-Aid to not address the actual crisis in education, which is resources, funding, respect and understanding of what teaching actually is,” Dr Tinkler said.
“What does it say about teachers if we think teaching is something that AI can do?”
AI is often touted as a time-saving tool for teachers, but Dr Tinkler said the current technology did not have a place in the education system aside from administrative tasks. Often the time-consuming tasks were the important things that AI could not help with.
“For students, it’s a bit dangerous at this point,” she said.
“There are a lot of issues around its biases — it’s racist, sexist and a whole lot of those sort of things.
“It’s a tool that mirrors knowledge rather than has knowledge, so it can’t actually teach. AI in this context is not artificial intelligence, it’s artificial education.”
Addressing the real issue
While teachers are required to check the work done with NSWEduChat’s assistance, Dr Tinkler said she was concerned that teachers might just skim over it because they’re overworked.
She also expressed concerns that using genAI would take away the opportunity for students to learn research and critical-thinking skills, as a large part of that process was talking, practising and discussing.
“If you’re giving that cognitive work to a machine, ‘Can you outline an essay?’, you’re not going to learn how to outline an essay,” she said.
“Educational technology is often a solution looking for a problem.
“We know why teachers are leaving, and it’s not lack of technology. They’re leaving for a whole lot of reasons that technology can’t solve.
“There’s too many kids, [and] not enough support. That’s the problem teachers need help with.”
While NSWEduChat is designed to address those issues and mitigate risks arising from students and teachers using AI in their own time, Dr Tinkler warned that it was still based on the current AI tools on the market.
“I get why they’ve done it. Students are going to be putting all sorts of personal stuff into AI that goes out in the real world,” she said.
“You can mitigate the risks without going, ‘Let’s use it for teaching and let students at it.’
“There is room to use it, but a lot of the things that are being touted as suitable uses for it are not suitable for it, like putting kids in front of chatbots.
“Teachers need to know how their students are doing. You can’t just delegate that stuff to AI.”
