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Although OpenAI has not yet achieved real profitability from its large AI models, GenAI has already gained a solid user base - primary and secondary schools in various countries.

According to reports from multiple media outlets including the Financial Times, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, more than one country and region has plans to use AI to assist teaching in primary and secondary school classrooms.

David Game College, a private school in London, is using AI tools such as ChatGPT to replace teachers to help some students prepare for exams.

In a pilot scheme starting in September, 20 pupils aged around 15 will use the AI ​​tool for a year before sitting GCSE exams in subjects including English, maths, biology, chemistry and computer science.

In addition to the AI ​​tools, each student will be assigned three full-time learning coaches to provide a personalized learning path.

In California, where the AI ​​technology atmosphere is stronger, even younger children are beginning to use AI tools in the learning process.

Even as schools across the United States have banned the use of ChaGPT to prevent cheating or model hallucinations from causing long-term harm to students, Khan Lab School has introduced Khanmigo, a model developed in collaboration with OpenAI.

Khan Lab School is still a private school with an annual tuition of more than $31,000. Because it is located in Silicon Valley, many parents of students are already in the AI ​​industry, and students are also very familiar with various technical concepts.

“Most parents are very excited about this and see the power in it,” said Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy. “They just want reasonable guardrails.”

Alisha Agrawal, 8, works with artificial intelligence instructor Khanmigo during a class at the Khan Lab School in Palo Alto, California.

The above educational experiments are only at the level of individual private schools, while South Korea's behavior seems to be more radical. They have introduced AI-driven digital textbooks nationwide from top to bottom starting from the Ministry of Education.

South Korea's education minister said tablets with artificial intelligence capabilities are "key" to reforming the education system. The technology, developed by South Korean companies including LG and Samsung, is expected to be introduced next year for students as young as eight.

By 2028, AI-related apps will be introduced in all subjects except music, art, physical education and ideology and morality, and teachers will be able to monitor students' activities through digital dashboards.

In addition to textbooks, other AI tools will also be introduced, including automatic transcription systems for classroom conversations and mobile robots that answer students' questions.

At the same time, students will receive training in digital literacy to learn how to deploy and use AI tools responsibly.

The official explanation for this reform plan is as follows:

“We all agree that we need to move away from one-way, memorization-based classrooms to spaces where students can engage and take control of their learning. 2025 is a critical year for this transformation, and we need to use AI textbooks to help teachers transform their curriculum.”

Why are schools in so many countries rushing to deploy AI in the classroom? Is it just because it’s “fashionable”?

In the eyes of many decision makers, there are many benefits to using AI to assist teaching. The first is to better promote "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude" and promote students' active and creative learning.

According to an analysis by the Financial Times, although South Korea has consistently ranked among the top in OECD assessment tests of students from various countries, the Seoul government is concerned that traditional memory-based learning methods are stifling innovation, so AI has become the key to this education reform.

According to the South Korean Ministry of Education, they will use customizable tablets, and AI software can assess each student's learning level and progress based on their data, distinguish between "fast learners" and "slow learners", and generate tasks of different levels of complexity to provide tailored education for everyone.

A large number of Korean students take extra classes after class, which often leads to different progress in the same class - some people fall asleep because they find the material too easy, while others cannot keep up with the course.

Education Ministry officials said AI textbooks could solve this problem: "Because it can provide a variety of content for any situation, stimulate students' interest in learning and help them think creatively."

John Dalton, principal of David Game College in London, expressed similar views.

The overall pace of the class doesn’t work for everyone, and AI-driven adaptive learning will benefit students greatly. They can go at their own pace and don’t have to keep up with the entire class.

Dalton said that this "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude" approach can greatly improve the efficiency of teaching core subjects, and schools can use the remaining time to develop "quality education", such as focusing on students' self-awareness, critical thinking, active citizenship, digital literacy, artistic expression, public speaking and entrepreneurship, etc.

The 20 students participating in the pilot will take part in a "diverse range of supplementary courses" in the afternoon, including learning how to debate, developing entrepreneurial skills, exploring AI and financial literacy, and participating in creative activities such as cooking and painting.

In addition, unlike interacting with human teachers, students can confidently ask AI assistants questions that might make teachers uncomfortable. Even if they learn slowly or make mistakes, they don’t have to worry about being judged by AI teachers.

Allowing students to learn at their own pace in a safe environment can boost their confidence and improve mental health while promoting knowledge acquisition.

In addition, Dalton added that the introduction of AI teaching does not mean completely excluding the participation of human teachers, "if students want, they can still interact with teachers."

In addition to these immediate benefits, some educators see value in other ways.

They believe that this can help solve the teacher shortage and overwork problems that England has faced for years. As class sizes continue to grow, the negative impact of the lack of one-on-one interaction between teachers and students may also be compensated by AI.

The South Korean Ministry of Education's plan to introduce AI textbooks has been welcomed by many teachers, with 54% of public school teachers supporting it, according to the Teachers Association.

However, the plan has sparked strong opposition from many parents who worry that it will expose their children to over-exposure to digital devices and potential misinformation from AI.

"As parents, we are already experiencing many unprecedented issues with our children's access to digital devices," reads a petition signed by more than 50,000 parents asking the government to pay more attention to the overall wellbeing of students.

Lee Sun-young, 41, a mother of two school-age sons, said she would like to see more after-school tutors to help students rather than AI textbooks.

“I’m concerned that too much digital use could have a negative impact on their brain development, attention spans and problem-solving abilities — they already use smartphones and tablets excessively.”

Shin Kwang-Young, a sociology professor at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, also disagrees with the reform measures, saying, "The government is too hasty in launching AI textbooks without properly evaluating their side effects, just because artificial intelligence is a big trend today."

The use of AI technology in the classroom poses multiple risks, including the potential for false information, plagiarism, and the disclosure of students' personal information. Artificial intelligence in the classroom faces the risk of "getting out of control."

The Ministry of Education’s plan does not spell out how such AI educational tools would work, or how to prevent AI from developing hallucinations or erroneous tendencies.

Shin Kwang-young added that it was reasonable to want to change the "rote learning" model, but the education system, including the examination method, needed to be reformed "properly" rather than relying solely on AI.

Hadida Grabow, director of the educational consulting firm Higher Learning Group, is more optimistic, but she still believes that AI cannot replace high-level human teachers and can only serve as a valuable auxiliary tool.

While we see some “promising use cases,” such as Google’s Socratic and Khan Academy’s AI teaching assistant, Grabow said, “We don’t see anything that can replace high-quality educators.”

What we cannot ignore most in Khan Academy’s use of Khanmigo is the misinformation and illusions that AI may give.

When using AI, teachers need to always remind students that Khanmigo may make mistakes and that they need to always carefully check any information they get from Khanmigo.

Additionally, the AI ​​system cannot judge students’ tone of voice or facial expressions, which are “key indicators of student understanding during instruction.”

Jessica Grose, an opinion writer for The Times who has long covered education, has written several stories this year about using the latest AI technology in the classroom.

After interviewing multiple high school and college teachers about their experiences using AI, her overall takeaway is that while there are some practical benefits to using AI in schools — like adding citations more quickly and completing mechanical tasks like basic coding — the downsides are significant.

Leila Wheless, who has been in education since 1991, tried to keep an "open mind" about using AI in her middle school English and language arts classes, but was frustrated by the results her students got from using it.

She assigned her students to research "prophet". After combining AI with the search, her students came up with this answer: "The Christian prophet Moses is famous for removing chocolate stains from T-shirts."

What surprised and incomprehensible to Wheless was that the student did not even think of asking the teacher to verify this absurd result.

Although it is almost common knowledge that AI can produce hallucinations and fallacies, eighth graders do not seem to have the relevant background knowledge or the intellectual patience to question the answers given by AI.

This case shows us that the biggest problem with using AI may not be cheating - after all, students have been trying to cheat using various tools all the time - or getting absurdly wrong answers.

A more thorny issue is that when students outsource their brainstorming and writing to GenAI tools like ChatGPT, they may be losing the ability to think critically and overcome frustration in the process of completing difficult tasks.

Sarah Martin, who teaches high school English in California, said what bothers her more than the rampant cheating and academic misconduct is that these students no longer have any "resilience."

In the seven years she has been teaching, the amount of time students are willing to spend on challenging tasks has become shorter and shorter.

In the past, many students would spend days struggling to grasp a concept. Now, if they can’t understand it in a few minutes, they may simply abandon the mental effort and look for an alternative, whether it’s a chatbot or asking a friend for help.

In April of this year, Jessica Grose wrote an article called "Every Tech Tool in the Classroom Should be Ruthlessly Evaluated."

AI makes it easier for many people to acquire knowledge, including students, but this is not without cost. The other side of more "teaching in accordance with students' aptitude" and "tailor-made" is the risk of making young people lose their patience and resilience in learning.

Mesut Duran, a professor of educational technology at the University of Michigan and author of Technology for Learning: Research, Trends, and Issues in the American Education System, said much of the technology used in the classroom was not developed with students in mind.

“Most technologies are initially created for commercial purposes, and then we decide how to use them in schools.”

Interestingly, this description fits GenAI very well. Who can say how much OpenAI considered the application in educational scenarios when launching ChatGPT?

After several weeks of conversation, the author of the article, Grose, expressed this view:

“We need to completely rethink the way we assess and use technology in the classroom; the overall change I would like to see is that technology use (devices and apps) in schools should be driven by educators rather than tech companies.”

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