The risk of losing their jobs is among a range of concerns being expressed by regional teachers, who fear that the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom could replace them in the future.
According to president of the Caribbean Union of Teachers (CUT), Dr Garth Anderson, the proliferation of AI is one of the most topical discussions in societies today, and teachers have several questions about the technology.
“There is a general fear currently affecting teachers. The fear is surrounding, will these machines, will this technology replace us in the classroom [and] what kind of policies exist to kind of monitor or to put some guardrails around the way they can be used?” he said.
The educator said there are also concerns about the kind of threat AI has for the integrity of examinations, which fosters the critical thinking teachers want to engender in students.
“They can simply go online now and pull answers to just about anything without actually thinking about it,” he told the Freedom Come Rain newspaper during a recent interview.
CUT hosted its week long 41st Biennial Conference beginning with a worship service at the Tarrant Baptist Church in Kingston on July 17. The slate of activities, which included its opening service on Monday, were all done under the conference’s theme: Getting it right: Revolutionizing Education :Prioritising Teachers.
Dr Anderson said educators are in uncharted waters when it comes to AI. He said it is necessary to increase awareness among teachers about the capabilities of the technology to enhance what they do in the classroom.
“We believe that it cannot replace the human teacher, simply because, while it may teach you to do Maths and English and so on, that emotional touch and interaction, these machines cannot provide,” he asserted.
Pastor of the Tarrant Baptist Church, Apostle Jeffrey Shuttleworth pointed to the fact that while there is a mad rush to replace physical teachers with AI, many developed countries are gobbling up regional educators by the hundreds.
“If it were that AI is better or superior than physical teachers made in the image of God, then why is this so, why are they in a mad rush almost to be gobbling up our teachers, inviting them to come in droves to their shores to teach their children?” he asked.
He noted that the Caribbean is suffering as a result of the massive migration of teachers and other professionals and urged the members of CUT to seek wisdom and insight from God during their deliberations, so that they can devise strategies to counter this problem.
“You cannot and will not get it right without wisdom,” he said, while adding that true wisdom comes from God.
The senior pastor assured that AI is no match for God and must not be given credence above humans, since human beings are more valuable than anything technology can produce because we are made in the image of God.
“We are lifting up AI as if it is the best thing since slice bread, when it is dependent on data, driven by algorithm,” he observed.