Artificial Intelligence: What Educators Need to Know

Editor's Note: This Commentary is part of a special report exploring game-changing trends and innovations that have the potential to shake up the schoolhouse. Artificial intelligence is a rapidly emerging technology that has the potential to change our everyday lives with a scope and speed that humankind has never experienced before. Some well-known technology leaders such as Tesla architect Elon Musk consider AI a potential threat to humanity and have pushed for its regulation "before it's too late"--an alarmist statement that confuses AI science with science fiction. What is the reality behind these concerns, and how can educators best prepare for a future with artificial intelligence as an inevitable part of our lives? General, widespread legislative regulation of AI is not going to be the right way to prepare our society for these changes.