Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the growing actor in education: Raising critical consciousness towards power and ethics of AI in K-12 STEM classrooms

Artificial intelligence (AI) incorporates the applications of machine-learning systems dominantly within the automated assessment and intelligent tutoring systems. These AI applications have promising potential to increase capacity within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education by supporting the social and cognitive development and learning experiences of students. Despite the affordances, AI applications pose critical ethical and societal challenges; and the issues of ethics and power of AI are largely absent from the discussions of formal or informal K-12 STEM education. Therefore, this chapter aims to bring a critical discourse on (a) the benefits and affordances of AI systems in K-12 STEM education, (b) what counts as an ethical AI system and what macro-ethical issues surround AI systems in education, and (c) what critical pedagogical approaches can be used to teach and raise critical consciousness about the macro-ethical issues of AI in STEM education.