AI has the potential to disrupt education - but will we allow it to?

Technology has the potential to transform the world: look at any industry (the music industry, the dating industry, the food industry, the travel industry), and you find a story of disruption powered by the forces of technology.

Amidst all this change, the education system has remained steadfast in its resistance to the disruption. Despite the promise of so-called disruptive education technologies like the MOOC, education technology has failed to deliver on its promise to transform both the reach and quality of education.

Enter AI.

The disruptive potential of AI is truly monumental.

Imagine a world where AI-designed learning experiences push us beyond a broken “sage on the stage model of instruction and create a world where every learning experience is tailored to the individual learner’s needs and preferences. Imagine a world where every learner can access an AI coach trained by the best teachers in the industry. Imagine a world where AI frees teachers from distraction from routine tasks like record keeping & lesson planning to focus instead on research, data analysis, AI training and modeling, and 1:1 coaching.

This is the future of education that AI can help us create. There is no doubt that AI has the potential to transform both the quality of the education system and the equity of access to it. The biggest question is not “Can AI disrupt education?” - it’s “Will we allow it to?”. Dr. Philippa Hardman is a scholar at the University of Cambridge and a thought leader in the world of education technology. She has spent over 20 years researching the science of how humans learn and, off the back of her research, has developed an evidence-based approach to learning experience design, known as DOMS™️, which is taking the education industry by storm. Philippa's mission is to leverage the power of technology to fix how we design and deliver learning experiences, to deliver on our unfulfilled promise to give equal access to truly transformative learning experiences. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx