The Symbiosis between AI and Human Teachers

The Era of Digital Capitalism

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data are already forming the fundamental axis of digital capitalism in all industries, including the education sector. Nowadays, Data and AI are becoming crucial tools for people looking for a better way to live in a world driven by digital capitalism. In his 1999 book, Professor Daniel Shiller introduced the term "Digital Capitalism" for the first time. In Shiller’s view, the purposeful neoliberal campaign of capitalism to resolve the capitalist crisis resulted in the expansion of the Internet, which in turn sparked the emergence of the digital economy and information society.

The revolutionary character of the Internet is due to its fast capacity to compress space and time, which enables it to swiftly overcome physical limitations. ICT is merely one industry where the economic effects of the Internet can be seen. The creation of new digital products and services based on ICT, as well as the impact of internet technology and digitalization on all industrial sectors, from traditional agriculture and manufacturing to the education sector. They also affect every step of the economic cycle, including the production, distribution, sale, and consumption of products and services. In addition to sparking a revolution, it made it possible for capital to be produced internationally and for markets to expand globally.

AI in the education sector, for instance, is transforming educational services like:

1 Automating common tasks such as sending emails

2 Dialogue-based tutors

3 Collaborative learning with AI

4 Content creation

5 Emotion and sentiment analysis

6 Employability

6.7 Recommendation engines

6.8 Student enrolment and induction

AI in Higher Education

AI is currently having an ongoing and significant impact on the education sector. How has AI changed higher education over time? Although it is becoming more and more common to use AI to help teachers, someone may counter that its original intent was to try to clone or replace them (the idea of free labor). AI has increasingly been used in the classroom, AI is widely used to assist teachers or students rather than taking over entirely.

What aspects of AI education are suitable for students in higher education? Is AI the ideal educational system we imagine that analyses all examinations and writings they haven't yet mastered, identifies their weak points, provides practice problems, and finds solutions? The most frequently mentioned form of AI education is AI-managed, tailored training. Why is personalized learning receiving so much attention? Why was AI education portrayed as a good education that fits our fantasies? The use of AI in and for education has enormous potential benefits including the above benefit, but there are also pros and cons.

In the present debates regarding AI education, students are frequently viewed as "Management Targets". In turn, the student became passive, lacks self-awareness, or, to put it another way, becomes a "Mindless Person". When dealing with a human learner, an intelligent AI takes the position of a human and functions as the student's tutor, delivering learning materials, evaluating the student's strengths and weaknesses, providing exercises to improve the student's learning flaws, and awarding grades. It has been challenging to develop an educational system that successfully develops students' capacities in an environment where students are treated as passive absorbers of information.

According to the World Economic Forum Report, students need abilities beyond what they learn in the classroom to succeed in the 21st century, particularly in teamwork, communication, and problem-solving. Through social and emotional learning, students may prosper in the quickly changing digital economy.

The Importance of Symbiosis between AI and Human Teachers

Even if students benefit from AI in the quickly changing digital economy of the twenty-first century, they still need to strengthen their fundamental skills that are independent of AI. Let's now consider how significant the teacher's role is in the context of artificial intelligence education. "The Future of Jobs Report 2020" from the World Economic Forum predicted that 85 million jobs would be lost globally to AI by 2025. Despite how terrifying that sounds, the article continues by stating that, within the same time period, 97 million new employment will be created. The fact that certain jobs won't ever be automated is consoling. Jobs that AI won't be able to replace include those that require creativity, compassion, complex political and strategic positions, and more. The advantages of AI technology are significant, as was already said, but the teacher's role is equally significant in maintaining and enhancing students' essential learning competencies (teamwork, communication, and problem-solving).

Here is an example!

Students can submit essays or assignments relatively effortlessly if they use the well-known ChatGPT (Open AI, Quilbot, etc.) to write their essays. Are artificial intelligence-generated assignments truly preferable in terms of moral conduct and practical knowledge acquisition?

Unfortunately, the education sector has already experienced the shockwave of this phenomenon. There are other AI tools such as GPT Zero, Detect GPT that could also detect and prevent plagiarism generated by AI. Isn't that ironic? Students, instructors, and those working in the educational sector can benefit greatly from AI. The symbiosis of AI technology and human teachers, however, is unavoidable for the development of actual learning capabilities, and blended learning that benefits from both are crucial.

The P2P (Peer to Peer) learning solution from Xcel Learning can provide a valuable environment for experience-based learning that can give students practical, job-ready skills by linking them with mentors and teachers that share our goals and views.

REFERENCES

Fuchs, C. (2022). Robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Digital Capitalism. Digital Humanism, 111–154. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80382-419-220221005

Schiller, D. (2000). Digital capitalism : networking the global market system. Mit Press.

Seo, K., Tang, J., Roll, I., Fels, S., & Yoon, D. (2021). The impact of artificial intelligence on learner–instructor interaction in online learning. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-021-00292-9

Soukeras, D. (2016, October 4). Artificial Intelligence (The desire for FREE labor). HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/artificial-intelligence-the-desire-for-free-labor_b_57f3a591e4b0f482f8f0bd1c

Thomas, M. (2019, August 27). AI and the Future of Jobs. Built In; Mike Thomas. https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-replacing-jobs-creating-jobs

Webb, M. (2021b). AI in Tertiary Education. In https://www.jisc.ac.uk/ (pp. 2nd edition). Jisc. https://beta.jisc.ac.uk/reports/artificial-intelligence-in-tertiary-education