by Kerry Boakes
This post introduces a resource titled Seeking Transparency in AI – From Black Boxes to Radical Possibilities (ed.ac.uk) to my colleagues at CALD.
This year I studied a unit called Digital Futures for Learning for my MSc in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. One of the assessment tasks was to create a resource for peers on the course based on one of the course themes. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an issue we are all learning to navigate, I made the above-mentioned resource.
The resource aims to facilitate collaboration with and mobilise educators on this topic. There are interactive tasks that offer you an opportunity to voice your concerns and hopes for the future. It discusses the challenges posed by the complexities and unpredictability of AI and suggests pedagogic strategies that encourage students to engage with it critically.
Section 4. Criticality to Action explores ‘algorithmic justice’, a theory of social justice that challenges the harmful impacts of AI, and asks how we as educators can enable students to be part of this movement within their local and academic communities.
The hope is that through this exploration, AI can be incorporated more into the curriculum at CALD. Not only in terms of academic misconduct and plagiarism, which seems to dominate the conversations around AI, but also in social movements that promote more awareness about digital rights, within universities and wider society.