Artificial intelligence will be an everyday part of a digital society. That’s why an AI philosophy is needed – ideally already in school, demands Isabelle Ewald.
Regular readers of this column know that I see digitization as a project for society as a whole. Not as a task for a few selected specialists, but as something that affects us all. Because the fact is: We are leaving an almost completely digitized world to the following generation – and the role of AI in it will be a very special one.
AI as the foundation of society
In the study “Life, Work, Education 2035+” by Münchner Kreis, an independent platform for orientation for designers and decision-makers in the digital world, which is well worth reading and available online free of charge, the term “family AI systems” is used. – and this term hits the nail on the head: in the future, AI will not only have a massive impact on certain parts of social life such as work, research, and development but will literally sit at home at the table.
In short: AI will be the overall technological substructure of our society, across all domains. The glue that holds us together as a group – on a small and large scale.
But let’s get back to the here and now and to the question: What advice can we give our offspring, as of today, so that they can face the digital future with courage and self-confidence?
Is computer science a compulsory subject in school?
As banal as it sounds, I personally believe that the answer lies in the development of certain soft skills. And that leads me straight to education and the question of what potential there is in the school curriculum for this. Is it done with a compulsory subject in computer science (which we are still a long way from)? Or do we need to dig deeper and literally engage in thought programming, which is explicitly not meant to manipulate thought patterns, but rather to foster a technology-focused discourse?
Just for fun, I looked at a few high school curriculums for the subject of philosophy and found that these vary from state to state, which comes as no surprise. This is also reflected in how much space is given to the complexity of human-machine interaction. From the rather superficial consideration to the well-founded discussion, everything is felt to be there. At least on paper.
“Computer science – seen from a human perspective ”
In (my) ideal world, there would be an integrated subject “Computer Science – seen from a human perspective”. Because if the goal of philosophy lessons is the ability to perceive existential questions in all their tension, then we need practice fields in which students learn at an early stage to question technology and to transfer what they have learned directly into frameworks that serve people.
True to the motto: The future lies in the algorithms of our children.
