Exploring the Ethical Principles for the Implementation of Artificial Intelligence in Education: Towards a Future Agenda

Introduction

Defining the concept of AI precisely is challenging since it has a very dynamic nature evolving in line with the ongoing technological advancements and, therefore, its definition needs to be adaptable to contemporary technological progress. In its simplest sense, McCarthy (2007, p.2) defines AI as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs”. OECD (2019, p. 7), on the other hand, describes it as “machine-based systems that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions that influence real or virtual environments”.

In the recent past, more specifically following the first decade of 2000s, AI has become a seamless aspect of our daily lives, frequently in the fields of healthcare, agriculture, financial services, marketing, and entertainment, and particularly has triggered the digital transformation in the education industry (Quy et al., 2023). With its affordances it has the potential to levigate teaching and learning practices and make the obstacles in education easier to overcome. Many AI in Education (AIED) tools aim to augment educators and learners by increasing access to education, enabling lifelong learning opportunities, adaptive and continuous assessment, fostering collaborative learning, providing instant personalized feedback, and automating a variety of tasks, including administrative duties, feedback delivery, and evaluating learners’ papers (Baker, 2021; Chen et al., 2020; Holmes et al., 2019). Additionally, in a systematic review study investigating the impacts of AI on online higher education, it is stated that the implications of AI technologies in online education have produced favorable outcomes such as enhanced academic achievements, and an increase in online engagement and participation (Ouyang et al., 2022). It is, however, critical to bear in mind that not all the effects of technology are pleasant, and this rule also applies to AI.

The use of AI empowered technologies has raised several concerns that should be taken seriously. These common risks and concerns include but are not limited to: biased outcomes, which can lead to discrimination, inequality, social and economic injustices; the lack of transparency and comprehension of the operations of AI algorithms, which can affect democracy, and fundamental human rights and values; invasion of privacy, which could be taken as a threat to human dignity; insufficient safety and security precautions, which can give rise to cyberattacks and data breaches (Cheatham et al., 2019; UNESCO, 2021). Along with the previously mentioned issues, AI within educational settings has brought up new concerns regarding the selection of pedagogical approaches employed by AI enabled tools, the effect of AI and learning analytics on educators’ decision-making processes, the changing role of educators, accessibility of education, and learning objectives (Holmes et al., 2022a). Addressing all these aforementioned issues is crucial to successfully employ AI in the context of education. That said, ongoing research with democratic collaboration between innovators, educators, policymakers, engineers, and software vendors and building policies and guidelines concerning the ethical implications of AIED are necessary. In their systematic review study, which included 146 articles on AI applications in higher education, Zawacki-Richter et al. (2019), however, highlighted the considerable lack of studies concerning potential risks and challenges associated with the use of AIED and the urgent need for further extensive studies on ethical issues. Therefore, in this study, a contemporary further exploration of ethical principles of AIED was made as an attempt to fill a gap in the literature.