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A proposal in Brazil to use generative AI in education threatens quality and equity

2024; Elsevier BV; Volume: 5; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.patter.2024.101020

2666-3899

Fernanda D.A.O. Matos, Gildo Girotto, Ana de Medeiros Arnt, Adriana Lippi Lippi,

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is considered one of the most revolutionary technological developments today. But can it replace teachers in education? A new proposal in São Paulo, Brazil, suggests this might be possible, but it raises significant concerns about educational quality and equity. Artificial intelligence (AI) is considered one of the most revolutionary technological developments today. But can it replace teachers in education? A new proposal in São Paulo, Brazil, suggests this might be possible, but it raises significant concerns about educational quality and equity. The use of AI by staff and students at various educational levels has sharply increased over the past decade. It speeds up writing, proofreading, coding, and managing daily workloads. Managing and enforcing responsible AI use, including screening for inappropriate use, is now becoming an additional task for editors, professors, and educators, who may see AI as both a blessing and a bane. Whether AI is actually advantageous in a specific application is also highly dependent on the user, the application, and the context to which it is inserted. This is particularly true for education. When education is treated as a priority, the outcome is a society characterized by a high human development index. However, in societies where the quality of science and education is endangered by a precarious administration, managers and politicians often choose quantity and productivity over quality. This seems to be the case in São Paulo, Brazil's largest city. In 2024, Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, affiliated with the right-wing party Republicanos, announced plans to use Chat-GPT to create classroom content for public schools.1Freitas A. G1 SP e TV GLOBOGoverno de SP avalia utilizar inteligência artificial para 'aprimorar' conteúdo digital nas escolas estaduais. G1 São Paulo, 2024https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-paulo/noticia/2024/04/17/governo-de-sp-avalia-utilizar-inteligencia-artificial-para-aprimorar-conteudo-digital-nas-escolas-estaduais.ghtmlGoogle Scholar As one would expect, this proposal triggered a number of protests via social media and among teachers who fear unemployment and a deterioration of education. According to the new guidelines, digital presentations will be generated by AI based on themes and references provided by the secretary of education. These presentations will be reviewed and adjusted by the responsible teacher first and then forwarded to the staff of the secretary of education in a process similar to peer-review. With the preliminary approval of the slides and content generated, the next step is to proofread the text and graphics and forward it for final approval and release to the schools. This process is supposed to result in the release of three presentations every 2 days, not necessarily done by professionals under a fixed-term contract. In theory, this may seem like a feasible and implementable chain of processes. We argue, however, that it only seems so on the surface. In this scenario, there are three main points that must be considered and that are obviously connected to each other: the political management of the current government, the school structure and professional training of teachers, and the technical capacity of AI systems. We believe that the project proposed by Governor de Freitas ignores the latter two points. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss the reasons why we reached this conclusion. The industrial revolution showed us that any technology has multiple sides. Coal enabled development but also deepened inequality and is triggering unprecedented climate change. Similarly, with AI, it is necessary that we understand all the possibilities, limitations, and interests behind the use of these systems in different sectors, especially social ones. As we ponder the potential harms and risks of AI, we also must keep in mind that we currently lack the means to detect AI usage accurately or to ban AI tools from daily life entirely. In a world driven by growth, determining where the search for excellence impairs creativity and individuality is a fine line, especially when applied to systems whose development and structure are not linear. The structure of the Brazilian public education system, for example, is very complex. Public schools coexist with private institutions, with private schools often seen as superior except in higher education. While some public schools outperform private ones, there are major disparities across the public school system. Many schools are hindered by insufficient staff, unattractive career plans for teachers, lack of planning time, corruption in fund distribution, and decreased investment due to the latest economic crises and reforms that have impacted the allocation of resources to strategic sectors in Brazil, including education. Furthermore, research shows that public schools are no less efficient in terms of management, just as relationships with the school community have a significant influence on student performance in parameterized tests.2Carnoy M. Simielli L. Escolas Charter e Vouchers: o que dizem as evidências sobre subsídios públicos para entidades privadas em educação? Sintese de evidências Todos Pela Educação e D3E.2022https://d3e.com.br/wp-content/uploads/sintese_2203_charter_vouchers_impressao.pdfGoogle Scholar,3Machado F.F.d.S. Da Cunha M.S. Borchers J. Fatores explicativos do desempenho escolar entre estudantes brasileiros.Observatório de la Econ. Latinoam. 2023; 21: 9172-9204https://doi.org/10.55905/oelv21n8-073Crossref Google Scholar Government employees, including teachers, are hired through competitive exams, but these positions are often fewer than needed to avoid extra costs. This leads to overloaded teachers who may teach outside their specialty (Figure 1), staff handling extra tasks, and managers dealing with administrative issues and expectations—or lack thereof—from students and parents. Additionally, poor infrastructure is a common complaint, compromising education quality. Even though Governor de Freitas claims that using Chat-GPT will not reduce future job openings for teachers, there is no guarantee that their jobs can be safeguarded. Additionally, there is no legal or historical guarantee that educational quality is a priority for Brazilian governments. As previously stated here, the governor also added that the recommendations given by the AI tool would be revised by teachers before being passed on to the students. Well, that means extra workload and will require extra specialist training, as Chat-GPT carries biases and errors that can affect information quality and accuracy. Also, AI tools do not always cite their sources, leading to issues of appropriation and traceability of content. Therefore, the use of AI systems could increase teacher burden and suppress investment in the creation of quality educational content. The government's trend of non-investment in education is not only reflected in the structure and hiring of teachers, but also in its oft inadequate training for these professionals. In the case of AI, digital skills training must be considered. This key issue was addressed recently by the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence report from the United Nations (UN).4UNESCORecommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. UNESCO, Paris, France2021https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381137Google Scholar At no point does the São Paulo government's proposal mention new training programs, nor does it acknowledge that reviewing AI-generated materials requires time, accuracy, and well-defined strategies, not a hurried process done by a few individuals. If São Paulo's plan is expanded to the entire country, the complexity increases. Regions like the North, Central-West, and Northeast of Brazil, which represent 82% of the territory and 43% of the population, face significant educational inequalities compared to the Southeast and South.5Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e EstatísticaCenso Demográfico 2022. IBGE, 2022https://www.ibge.gov.br/estatisticas/sociais/trabalho/22827-censo-demografico-2022.html?=&t=publicacoesGoogle Scholar,6Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio TeixeiraCenso escolar da educação básica 2023: resumo técnico. INEP.2023https://download.inep.gov.br/publicacoes/institucionais/estatisticas_e_indicadores/resumo_tecnico_censo_escolar_2023.pdfGoogle Scholar Figure 1A illustrates the percentage of adequately trained teachers in different regions, highlighting this disparity. Whereas São Paulo has around half of its high school courses taught by 60%–80% trained teachers, Amazonas, in North Brazil, has almost 80% of the courses are conducted by professionals considered not necessarily "fit" for the job. The situation is aggravated for high schools (Figure 1B) where only one municipality in the entire Amazonas, coincidentally the capital, Manaus, provides relatively adequate education to their students. Such inequality in education matches almost with surgical precision the country's inequality index per municipality.7Vissoci J.R.N. Ong C.T. Andrade L.d. Rocha T.A.H. Silva N.C.d. Poenaru D. Smith E.R. Rice H.E. Global Initiative for Children's SurgeryDisparities in surgical care for children across Brazil: Use of geospatial analysis.PLoS One. 2019; 14e0220959https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220959Crossref Scopus (18) Google Scholar Also, any reform to the current education system, regardless from a regional or national perspective, needs to account for the significant challenges posed by the number and diversity of courses offered, as well as professionals and students involved in education. In addition to middle and high school education, the Brazilian public education system also provides special classes for youths and adults (e.g., individuals that have not completed their studies during the expected years and wish to do so during adulthood), professional training, children in daycare facilities, and neurodiverse students, for example. All of this diversity is then compressed into an average of approximately 16 students per teacher and 354 students per public school in Brazil, which definitely hides a much broader picture. Most of the teachers are responsible for multiple classes across different education levels and/or subject areas, and there is astonishing inequality in the number of students enrolled in schools of larger versus smaller cities. For instance, of the approximately 106 thousand public schools in the country, 57% are considered small (Figure 2; up to 10 classes and 200 students) and are concentrated in the North and Northeast regions.6Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio TeixeiraCenso escolar da educação básica 2023: resumo técnico. INEP.2023https://download.inep.gov.br/publicacoes/institucionais/estatisticas_e_indicadores/resumo_tecnico_censo_escolar_2023.pdfGoogle Scholar,8Neto J.J.S. Karino C.A. Jesus G.R.d. Andrade D.F.d. A infraestrutura das escolas públicas brasileiras de pequeno porte.Revista do Serviço Público. 2014; 64: 377-391https://doi.org/10.21874/rsp.v64i3.129Crossref Google Scholar Therefore, considering the diversity of students and their specificities, it is unthinkable to consider the same class structure for all students. Teachers often adapt the content and structure to each class, based on their own diagnostic assessments and knowledge acquired through contact with students. Automating lesson plan creation is not only undesirable, but also inappropriate in terms of quality. The focus of any government, not only in Brazil, but also in many other countries, should be to improve the training and working conditions of educational professionals, improve infrastructure of educational institutions, and provide a safe and enjoyable environment for students, not to look for a "quick fix" for a long-term issue. Finally, while AI may aid in reducing unnecessary burdens that professionals face in their daily lives, to make it responsible for the quality of any social indicator would require time, extensive research, and testing cases in small sample sizes—not the most populated state of the 8th economy in the world, which has more than 200 million inhabitants. AI is definitely not ready for this task now, and there is no certainty that it will ever be ready to substitute for the value of real human teachers. We thank the European Geosciences Union (EGU), for promoting the theme "Artificial Intelligence in scientific publishing: blessing or bane?" as a Great Debate during the EGU General Assembly 2024. The authors would also like to thank the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation for the support to the development of research on education in Brazil. F.D.A.O.M. conceived the manuscript structure, wrote the manuscript, and created the figures. A.M.A., G.G., and A.L. read and improved the manuscript. The authors declare no competing interests. About the authors Fernanda DI Alzira Oliveira Matos is a PhD candidate in the area of Paleoclimate Dynamics at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, in Germany. She holds a bachelor's degree in oceanography and a master's degree in geophysics and has worked as a public-school teacher prior to moving to Germany to conduct her doctoral studies. Through this experience, she has become highly interested in the development of education in Brazil and, lately, on how AI will impact the future of education in the world. Gildo Girotto Junior is a professor at the Institute of Chemistry at the State University of Campinas, Brazil. He holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry and master's and doctorate in chemistry teaching. He carries out research in teacher training with an emphasis on the analysis and development of professional and technological knowledge, interdisciplinary practices, and scientific dissemination proposals. He is currently developing a post-doctoral project at the Faculty of Sciences of Porto investigating digital teaching skills, STEAM proposals in chemistry teaching, and the use of artificial intelligence in education. Ana de Medeiros Arnt has a degree in biological sciences, a doctorate in education, and is currently a professor and coordinator of Science Blogs at the State University of Campinas, in Brazil. Adriana Lippi is currently a master's student in interdisciplinar ocean science and technology at the Federal University of São Paulo. Her research is on women's barriers in ocean sciences. She creates content in science popularization and critical environment education for social media and blog. She is also an oceanographer, web designer, data analyst, and project manager in the not-for-profit sector. Lippi is part of the Women's League for the Ocean, an organization for empowering women and protecting the ocean.