new publication: Jacques Ellul's work as critical lens for AI in education

I had been wanting for some time to write an article channeling some of my grumpiness about AI, and so when Information and Learning Sciences announced a special issue on “Critical Studies Perspectives on AI’s Impact in Education,” it seemed like a good chance to actually act on that. I was especially interested in two of the example research questions from the CFP:

What research and scholarly paradigms, methods and theories are well-suited to understanding the proliferation of AI in education contexts?

What are the most relevant and impactful ethics theories and approaches relevant to AI in education?

I’ve been writing enough about Jacques Ellul on this website that it’s almost a cliché to call attention to how much I’ve been writing about Jacques Ellul. Suffice it to say, though, that I do find Ellul’s ideas helpful for thinking about AI (among many other topics), so that was one of the most obvious ways of going forward.

To make a long story short, after a productive review process, the paper I wrote has now been accepted and published, which I’m quite happy about! The paper is a look at how extended engagement with Ellul can inform how we think about artificial intelligence in education. I took a particular look at Ellul’s technique and his “image vs. word” distinction (which I framed in terms of a skepticism of facts), explaining each and giving some brief examples followed by an extended (but still limited) reflection on how these ideas might serve as frameworks for critically evaluating AI. These extended reflections also let me write at length about two topics that have been on my mind a lot: nudifier apps’ their effects on schools and the differences between generative AI and Wikipedia.

The authoritative version of the paper can be found here, and a preprint can be found on this page.

• publications
• research
• edtech
• generative Ai
• AI
• Elon Musk
• Grok
• Jacques Ellul
• technique
• image vs. word