STEM Tuesday

AI in Schools Has a Cost: Impacts and Responses

by Kamilla Milligan and Alexandra Millarhouse

Are you being asked to incorporate AI into your work or classroom? How do you feel about that?

The push for AI seems to be everywhere these days, including in many classrooms. As educators, parents, and creatives, we have concerns.

What does it mean for students? For our future?

We wanted to offer you some of the research we have gathered about AI use in the classroom. We believe that it is important to take into account all of the issues with AI when considering how you can contribute to the conversation in your own district.

While this post aimed at educators, we hope that this information serves anyone who is interested in learning more about the costs and impacts of AI on students and beyond.

AI Impacts in the Classroom

Let’s start with how AI affects students in the classroom. Research conducted by Abdulrahman (2024) identifies ten categories of potential negative impact from AI (see Table) while Ahmad et al. (2021) points out six risk areas. Some of these include:

• Loss of human connection. Students report a reduction in connections with teachers and other students.
• Reduced critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity. Research has shown a link between AI use and cognitive decline in students. When machines generate solutions, students lose opportunities for learning and development of creative solutions. For example, there is a cost to using AI at any stage of the writing process.
• Social knowledge and skill-building risks. AI use has been found to reduce interpersonal skills and tolerance for difference. Current AI models are sycophantic, agreeing with and supporting the logic of users. Those who use AI regularly show reduced ability to respect different perspectives, and increased rigidity in the rightness of their viewpoints.
• Accuracy and functional risks. AI has significant errors in output and frequent hallucinations, including false information and research citations. 

The Big Picture of AI Impacts

In addition to classroom use, educators should be aware of the larger drawbacks of AI. The harms caused by widespread adoption of AI technologies* to our physical, social and economic environments are well documented, including: 

• Resource use: AI’s high amounts water, land, and energy usage contribute to climate change. Every prompt to an AI tool has an environmental cost.
• Illegal foundations: Generative AI programs are built on the theft of the work of thousands of authors, artists and other creators. 
• Job impacts: AI has not resulted in increased workplace efficiencies but instead has increased labour and productivity loss for those who have to deal with AI slop and negative job impacts for professions, including visual artists. Additionally, AI has been found to cost employers more than the workers it replaces.
• Risks to privacy, data security and individual well-being: Privacy concerns include “unauthorised data usage, algorithmic bias, surveillance overreach, and data breaches…” (GDPR Local) as well as other risks such as misinformation and AI system failures.
• Exacerbates existing inequities: AI has greater negative impacts on marginalized groups, such as gender costs for women who use it while men reap rewards and reinforcing racialized stereotypes.

The Classroom Context: Pressures on Teachers

The push to adopt AI is creating practical and ethical challenges. While many want to take a thoughtful approach to adopting a brand-new technology, they may not have been given time or support to understand the full scale of AI’s potential impacts, let alone make independent choices about if or how it might belong in a classroom. As you look into AI, it’s crucial to understand the context within which AI is being rolled out. 

It’s also important to note that while AI is being pushed in some districts, it’s being paused in others, including NYC and Los Angeles, for many of the reasons noted below. 

Time savings/personalized learning. Educators face increased responsibilities: learning shortfalls and exacerbated gaps in learning; lower attention spans among students; and funding cuts that are deeply impacting school resources (as well as publishing). 

Many schools and school boards assume that AI addresses these systemic problems, for example, by providing time savings (such as in filling out report cards) or by personalizing assignments. This is not necessarily true.

The push for AI use can increase pressures on educators as they are assumed capable of taking on more responsibilities. Instead, they have to manage, review and edit AI products as well as deal with the unintended impacts in the classroom, along with the other, ongoing parts of their jobs.

Additionally, AI creates an even thinner overall system by committing limited resources to AI programs instead of addressing real resource needs since human learning requires interactions with humans, even if technology can play a role. 

“Future-proofing” students’ skills. Some argue that students must learn to use AI to be competitive in the job market. But this assumes a future where AI is ubiquitous. It also assumes that we can “future-proof” students’ skills using current technology. 

However, as one example, writing code was touted and prioritized a decade ago as the skill every student needed to succeed. Yet, as those students enter the job market, coding is now increasingly considered redundant as it is outsourced to AI. 

A future based in AI is also far from guaranteed. Currently (and foreseeably), AI is unsustainable economically and environmentally, and is running out of training materials required to continue to grow. 

[from https://isaiprofitable.com/]

No matter what the future holds, students will need skills in reading, writing, scientific and math literacy, and critical thinking. 

No Single Solution

We recognize that each school, each classroom, each person is different. But no matter your context or circumstances, the most important thing is to educate yourself enough to make an intentional, researched plan so that you can help guide the conversation in your own area. Recognizing the complexity of this topic, we will leave you with questions rather than answers:

How can we continue to think and talk critically about this technology, and who benefits from its use and widespread rollout?

What choices do we have as individuals in our interactions with AI? What other options are possible, even with systemic pressures encouraging its use?

How can we have higher-level conversations about the root causes that are driving the push to implement AI?

What skills are needed to create a sustainable, equitable future for all on the planet? How is the use of AI building or destroying those skills in students? 

And ultimately, how do we develop informed citizens who are equipped to navigate a changing world, and are capable of understanding their choices and the impacts of those choices on each other and the planet? 

The world is changing. We all need to be problem-solvers, to have the full functioning of our brains, bodies, and humanity actively engaged in facing the challenges we’ll encounter over the coming decades. 

*AI encompasses a wide range of technologies and applications. This overview focuses on those more commonly used in classrooms and by the public, including generative AI, chatbots, use of AI by teachers to generate content or reports, and AI companions.

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Kamilla Milligan is a kidlit writer who explores themes of home, connection with nature, and cultural diversity in her stories. Kamilla has lived in Canada, the southern US, and Russia, and applies her PhD in education to her work in equity and human rights. Outside of reading, Kamilla enjoys gardening, fibre projects, and nature walks. Visit Kamilla online at kamillamilligan.com

Alexandra Millarhouse is a researcher, science communication professional, and writer focused on the intersection of nature, science, and self. Her nonfiction picture book, THE ANIMAL QUEENDOM, comes out in Jan 19, 2027 with Simon & Schuster. Living in Vermont, Alexandra is often tracking wildlife across a cemetery, or sitting by the water with a sketchbook. Visit Alexandra online at: foxandindigo.com