AI is 'biggest risk' to youth mental health and educational benefits being ‘squandered’, warns expert
Sir Anthony has previously argued that AI could rapidly reshape classrooms, while also warning schools should ensure the technology does not “dehumanise” pupils
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the “biggest challenge” to young people’s mental health and its potential educational benefits are being “squandered”, a historian and author has said.
Listen to this article
Sir Anthony Seldon, a former private school headteacher and co-founder of AI in Education, said the potential for harm presented by the technology was “immeasurably greater than from pre-AI social media”.
He said the technology also presented challenges “to intellectual rigour and to the integrity of assessment”.
“You might expect strong and decisive leadership from the government on AI in education. You’d be surprised,” he wrote in The Times
Read more: Earl Spencer backs Harry in Sussexes' taxpayer-funded security row
Read more: Trump announces triumphal arch will contain drones and snipers
“Britain ranks close to the bottom internationally on AI in schools. Too little, too miniaturist and too late characterises the response.
“School leaders, governors, teachers, parents and pupils are bewildered and are crying out for guidance.”
His comments come after the publication of a booklet co-authored with tech entrepreneur Tim Bunting, which calls on the Department for Education to establish a “rapid response team” to “revolutionise” its approach to AI.
“The biggest risk of AI is not that it pulls the plug on humanity but that, without rapid government intervention, it will choke and not liberate the minds of our young people,” he said.
“We can wait no longer.”
AI in Education advises schools on which developments are likely to be beneficial and which may be damaging.
Sir Anthony has previously argued that AI could rapidly reshape classrooms, while also warning schools should ensure the technology does not “dehumanise” pupils by limiting their contact with other young people.
He previously said: “It will be such a different world because the heavy lifting and a lot of the learning can be done on the screen, sometimes in a lesson where you’ve got all the kids on a screen, sometimes in smaller spaces.”
Recent findings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) examined the use of AI among teenagers around the world.
“Overall, you can say the more AI is present, the worse the country performs,” Andreas Schleicher, OECD education and skills director, said earlier this month.
But he said results could depend on how AI is used.
“You do not get fit by watching sports,” he said.
“In the same way, you do not learn by consuming content. Learning is always about effort, that’s the only way you build your brain cells, by investing energy, by investing by cognitive struggle.
“Where AI enhances that cognitive struggle is great. Where AI undercuts that cognitive struggle by making things easier for you, task performance increases but results do not, learning does not.”