Artificial intelligence, cognitive systems and biosocial spaces of education

Recently, new ideas about'artificial intelligence' and'cognitive computing systems' in education have been advanced by major computing and educational businesses. More particularly, what understandings of the human teacher and the learner are assumed in the development of such systems, and with what potential effects? The focus here is on the education business Pearson, which published a report entitled Intelligence Unleashed: An argument for AI in education in February 2016, and the computing company IBM, which launched Personalized Education: from curriculum to career with cognitive systems in May 2016. Pearson's interest in AI reflects its growing profile as an organization using advanced forms of data analytics to measure educational institutions and practices while IBM's report on cognitive systems makes a case for extending its existing R&D around cognitive computing into the education sector. AI has been the subject of serious concern recently, with warnings from high-profile figures including Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Elon Musk, while awareness about cognitive computing has been fuelled by widespread media coverage of Google's AlphaGo system, which beat one of the world's leading Go players back in March. Commenting on these recent events, the philosopher Luciano Floridi has noted that contemporary AI and cognitive computing, however, cannot be characterized in monolithic terms as some kind of'ultraintelligence'; instead it is manifesting itself in far more mundane ways through an'infosphere' of'ordinary artefacts that outperform us in ever more tasks, despite being no cleverer than a toaster': The success of our technologies depends largely on the fact that, while we were speculating about the possibility of ultraintelligence, we increasingly enveloped the world in so many devices, sensors, applications and data that it became an IT-friendly environment, where technologies can replace us without having any understanding, mental states, intentions, interpretations, emotional states, semantic skills, consciousness, self-awareness or flexible intelligence.