Education and work

AI is having a huge impact on our lives and increasingly education. Its power is being harnessed to tackle global educational challenges and to shape the future of learning and the modern workplace.

1) Using AI to tackle some of the big educational challenges faced by educators across the globe, both in terms of currently available AI and the potential future that AI might bring to educational challenges.

2) The need to educate people about AI, including the need to educate people about the ethical reasoning they will need to employ in order to decide if they wish to use a particular AI.

3) The impact of the fourth industrial revolution, a revolution that is significantly driven by AI, upon the need for education systems to change so that they can teach people the skills and knowledge that they need for the modern workplace and for contemporary life.

The AI and Education research conducted within UCL addresses all three of these categories. Find out how UCL researchers are using AI to solve education and work issues below.

Education

EDUCATE

Founded by Professor Rose Luckin, EDUCATE is the largest education technology (EdTech) Research incubator in Europe and creates a ‘golden triangle’ between teachers and learners, EdTech companies and EdTech researchers to ensure that the UK produces products and services that have a genuine impact on learning. By the end of its first three years, the programme was able to successfully support 270+ EdTech companies. 

Funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme, iRead aims to develop personalised learning technologies to support reading skills. The project focuses on primary school children across Europe, learning to read and learning English as a foreign language including children with dyslexia who are at risk of exclusion from their education.

iTalk2Learn - a three-year EU-funded project - uses game development, educational psychology and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve mathematical confidence and attainment for primary school pupils.

My Life Online

My Life Online investigates the real-life impact of social media algorithms on the lives young people aged 13-22. The aim of this research project is to inform a more effective and inclusive national infrastructure policies, recognising the dangers of biased algorithms. The findings are also being used to develop a simple digital tool that will enable young people to train their own algorithms to provide a more varied and health social media experience.

UnLocke

UnLocke is an innovative maths and science learning activity informed by neuroscience. The UnLocke intervention involved a computerised learn activity training children to ‘Stop and Think’ during maths and science problem solving to allow more complex concepts to come to the forefront instead of relying on rapid intuitive but incorrect responses.

Ethical AI in Education

Launched in Autumn 2018, the Institute of Ethical AI in Education (IEAIED), based at the University of Buckingham, seeks to ensure the ethical development of AI-led EdTech. The IEAIED is being led by Professor Rose Luckin, Sir Anthony Seldon (Vice-Chancellor, University of Buckingham) and Priya Lakhani (CEO of CENTURYTech). In February 2020, the IEAIED launched its Interim Report at The House of Lords and published a provisional guidance toolkit for educational institutions using AI at the same time. The report outlines the projected risks and benefits of AI in education and sets out the steps that need to be taken to develop a respected and effective ethical framework, which will promote beneficial uses of AI whilst also safeguarding learners against the harms of unethical AI.

Funded by UKRI, this project aims to ensure that AI is used ethically for international development and education. The project will examine the impact of public-private partnerships on the use of AI in education in Ghana and South Africa.

Fairness, Accountability, Transparency and Ethics of AI in Education

Efforts related to Fairness, Accountability, Transparency and Ethics (FATE) of AI aim to contextualise the key ethical dimensions in educational research and applications of AI. Work in this area concentrates on understanding the relationship between different forms of AI and human cognitive abilities and predispositions, with implications for informing how we may conceive of AI for the benefit of humans and in influencing human decision making and functioning.