Teaching AI Ethics

Submitter: Leon Furze, Deakin University

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The experiment:

At the end of 2022 I left the classroom after fifteen years in secondary education to pursue consultancy and my PhD studies. Originally, the intent was to consult around literacy, reading and writing; however, my PhD studies are focused on generative AI (genAI) and as soon as ChatGPT launched my work with schools quickly shifted to focus on these new technologies. I’m a blogger and author, and one of the first series of posts I wrote for K-12 educators was Teaching AI Ethics. The series extended from my PhD readings about the field of AI and the numerous ethical concerns, including bias and algortihmic discrimination, environmental concerns, intellectural property, datafication, human labour, and the concentration of power by big tech. Those initial blog posts included advice on how to have these discussions with students, aligned to various areas of the (Australian) curriculum. Over the course of 2023, those blog posts also turned into an online series of webinars, a digital professional development, and have now been collated and turned into an open access eBook. Teaching AI Ethics has now been presented to hundreds of educations in K-12 and tertiary in its various formats, and has been included in school and university resource libraries across the world.

Results:

The session, when I run it live, is always received with a mixture of shock, horror, mild disgust, interest, excitement, and many, many questions. It’s safe to say that AI is an ethical minefield – but what aspect of technology isn’t? One aspect that I always try to address is that, while it’s important to shed light on these ethical concerns, you can’t stay up on that ethical high horse indefinitely. Eventually you have to climb down and survey the landscape: find out how people are using these technologies, who is benefitting from the data and investment, and how we might make the systems better.

Both teachers and students have been responsive to this approach. We try to balance discussions of these complex, global ethical concerns with practical and creative uses of AI. For example, while AI algorithms can discriminate against different genders, races, and cultures, it can also be used in ways which surface and address systemic inequalities. A seventeen year-old student in one of the Teaching AI Ethics presentations put it best. During the discussion the student stood and asked “who got here this morning in a car?” She then listed the ethical concerns of driving: environmental concerns, industry monopolies, road traffic accidents, human labour and automation… the list went on. She concluded by pointing out that we make ethical decisions – conscious or not – every day of our lives. We will inevitably find ways to navigate AI ethics.

Relevant resources: The full Teaching AI Ethics series is available here: https://leonfurze.com/ai-ethics/

Contact:

• Website: https://leonfurze.com
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/leonfurze/