During the afternoon of last Sunday, April 12, the state of New York advanced in the regulation of the artificial intelligence (AI) in all its public schools to establish legal and ethical frameworks that seek to guarantee safe, transparent and respectful use, and avoid risks such as bias or misinformation in minors.
Faced with this situation, the educational authorities of New York published new instructions to establish a more framework sure for the adoption of AI-based technologies, in a context in which innovation advances at high speed and emerging concerns for the use of artificial intelligence among students and teachers.
Given the circumstances, the Department of Education designed a scheme that is committed to community participation and adapts the technology to the needs of at least one million of students, so these standards mark the beginning of a comprehensive policy on the use of AI in the largest school system in the United States.
Faced with this scenario, according to what was stated by the American television network NBCNewsthe main objective of these guidelines is to ensure that the integration of artificial intelligence in salons is done in a safe, ethical and responsible, with priority on the protection of students and educational quality.
Policies to avoid plagiarism or loss of critical thinking
Taking into consideration that institutions face the challenge of establishing clear policies and offering formal training to avoid risks such as plagiarism or the loss of critical thinking, the document, prepared with the collaboration of two thousand participants from the educational community, establishes a vision shared for the use of AI.
For now, the main focus is that artificial intelligence serves to support and expand learning without displacing the role of teachers or replacing the essential human interaction in education. Furthermore, the use of AI in the public system seeks, among other objectives, to reduce the technological gap and improve educational quality.
According to the American newspaper The New York Timesthe adoption of these standards responds to the need to prepare students for a world in which AI is part of the environment laborso it can function as a virtual tutor that allows each student to progress at their own pace and receive feedback immediate.
In light of this, the New York guidance recognizes that technology does not replace the professional judgment of educators and that students require adults who know how to discern when and how to use artificial intelligence in benefit of learning, especially to improve the understanding of students with diverse needs.
Development of critical thinking
On the other hand, artificial intelligence can become a kind of support for the teacher, since it could help in the planning of lessons, the automation of administrative tasks and the creation of materials didactic personalized, such as transcribing videos into mind maps for students.
However, the New York educational authority emphasizes that the development of critical thinking and the acquisition of fundamental skills must take precedence over excessive dependence on automated tools, so, despite the advantagesimplementation in public schools presents obstacles significant.
This is because in the United States there is worry that the inappropriate use of artificial intelligence affects the creativityincrease technological dependence and facilitate plagiarism. Furthermore, AI requires solid infrastructure and public policies to not deepen the inequalities between schools with and without resources.