Challenging the Promises of EdTech: A critical analysis of the promises made by an AI EdTech Startup

• In Event: The Politics of EdTech: Exploring the changing conditions of educational governance in the age of technocapitalism (Part I)

Proposal

With the increasing technological development and availability of artificial intelligence (AI) in education and schooling, especially that of generative tools such as ChatGPT, it is not a question anymore of if AI will change educational settings, practices, and decision-making, but rather a question of how. In this era of the ‘AI boom’ (Whitford, 2023), educational technology (EdTech) startups driven by generative AI advances seek to ‘revolutionize the educational system’, promising the improvement of working conditions for teachers, learning outcomes, and individualized learning, for example. With these developments in mind, we can see that an AI-driven change in education is possible and probable, but we also need to ask: Is it preferable?

Based within the field of Critical EdTech Studies, this contribution considers digitalization of schooling and education as a highly political phenomenon (Decuypere et al., 2021; Macgilchrist, 2021; Selwyn, 2022; Komljenovic et al., 2023; Williamson et al., 2023). This contribution wants to add to this critical discourse by critically analyzing which narratives circulate and become operative within the design processes of an AI-driven EdTech project.

Drawing on material from an ethnographic study looking at the inner workings and decision-making processes within a German EdTech startup, I want to de-construct and critically challenge the overarching promises made by this startup. For this, I analyzed interviews and ethnographic fieldnotes gathered during fieldwork at an AI EdTech startup which is developing an AI-based feedback tool for the use in German high schools.
By using a Grounded Theory approach (Marcus, 1995) and looking especially at the discourses present, I have found three big promises that are being made by the EdTech startup: one of objectivity, one of relief, and one of a possible systemic change, all enabled through the use of the envisioned AI tool. In my contribution, I want to challenge these promises identified in the material by critically reflecting on them, drawing on studies from international critical scholarship. It is important to re-politicize these narratives, to unveil the potential outcomes of AI-driven feedback practices and, looking at possible future work, to uncover how these technologies are being designed, also in other cultural and/or organizational contexts such as Big Tech.

Author

• Julie Lüpkes, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg