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South Korea's world-first plan for AI in schools runs into 'lab rats' controversy

By Choonsik Yoo

(November 26, 2024, 22:59 GMT | Comment) -- About 1.5 million young students across South Korea will begin using artificial intelligence software in schools starting in 2025 in the world’s first instance of AI technology adoption on such a large scale, in such a sensitive sector and for such a young group.

The government hopes the AI Digital Textbook project will showcase the country’s advanced digital capabilities, although tens of thousands of civil activists, unionized teachers and parents think otherwise. They’re demanding that the project be put on hold until its benefits and risks are thoroughly evaluated.

Otherwise, they argue, the project will end up turning students as young as eight into little more than lab rats for the government and edtech businesses — driven by the respective goals of making South Korea the first country to implement such technology and making large profits.

The controversy is taking place as South Korea tries to mobilize national resources as massively and quickly as possible to achieve its goal of becoming a global leader of the coming AI age (see here). It hopes this will serve as a new engine of economic growth, replacing the manufacturing-dependent model.

— Classroom revolution —

According to the government’s plan, students and teachers at primary and secondary schools will log into a government-developed, integrated platform to use AI textbooks, which each school selects in advance from those developed by private companies and approved by the government.

South Korea has about five million primary and secondary school students, and in the first year the project will be introduced to about one-third of them, covering a few subjects, before gradually expanding to all students for more subjects by 2028.

The Ministry of Education said AI capabilities can better diagnose and analyze each student’s learning level and support customized educational content, in contrast to the current system requiring one teacher to teach a whole class of about 25 students.

For example, students can study mathematics with AI systems providing content tailored to their level and interests, practice English with speech-recognition technology for speaking and listening, and learn information science through coding exercises, the ministry said.

In the short term, each student will receive personalized content based on their academic performance and learning pace — something currently impossible. In the long term, students will be able to develop core competencies for the society of the future by moving from traditional one-way classes to interactive classes in which they participate and take the lead in learning, the ministry added.

As recently as late August, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged to accomplish the AI Digital Textbook project as a core part of education reform, which he included in his administration’s list of four top reform priorities, alongside the overhauling of the national pension, healthcare and labor-market systems.

— Lab rats for whom? —

The AI-in-schools project faces opposition from many civil activists, teachers and parents. An online petition, filed with the parliament to demand reconsideration of the project, was automatically transferred to a relevant committee after gaining more than the required 50,000 backers within 30 days.

The petitioner points out that the project runs counter to a trend in advanced countries of reducing the use of digital devices in classrooms due to their negative impact on brain development. South Korea, the world’s most wired country, is already experiencing a rise in problems related to digital addiction among young people.

A recent report from the National Assembly Research Service also called for reconsideration of policies on use of digital devices in schools due to their negative effects on mental health. It noted that 87.3 percent of junior-high and high-school students in South Korea were using the Internet for more than two hours a day — the maximum level US health experts recommend for students.

In addition to the unilateral benefit of building experience in training their AI models and developing programs, textbook publishing companies could also gain unauthorized access to the increasing amount of data from young students, who are more vulnerable than adults to data leaks and the complex processes of giving consent for data collection, opponents say.

Separately, about 130 organizations of civil activists, teachers, parents and education experts launched a joint committee to stop the AI textbook project in late August, criticizing the government for pushing ahead without addressing concerns and suspicions.

The Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union, a powerful civil-activist group leading the joint committee, told MLex that the government is investing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year in a project for which the benefits and risks have not been sufficiently evaluated.

— Poor AI-governance framework —

Opponents suspect that the government is hastily pushing ahead with the initiative out of political ambition, even though this type of AI system would fall into the high-risk regulatory category, according to the European Union’s AI Act, and South Korea has yet to establish a nationwide AI governance framework.

South Korea is hoping to enact a comprehensive law overseeing AI governance issues as early as possible, and the relevant parliamentary committee passed this week the unified version of the framework AI act to replace nearly 20 proposals submitted by lawmakers from major parties.

Unlike the regulation-oriented EU, the market-driven US or state-controlled China, South Korea is explicitly prioritizing the promotion of the AI industry, viewing the global boom in the technology as a crucial opportunity to revive its economy, which is on the verge of losing momentum.

South Korea is one of the few countries with a comprehensive, homegrown AI ecosystem, which includes a digital-minded government, high-end hardware producers, large-scale model developers and a tech-savvy population. It has officially set a goal of becoming an AI leader outside of the US and China.

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