Book review: Should Robots Replace Teachers?

Just because something seems inevitable doesn’t mean that it will happen. Those of us who work in schools are told, almost weekly, by government, writers, and (God, help us) edupreneurs that artificial intelligence (AI) is about to transform our dull, utilitarian, suburban ways of teaching into something creative, gleaming, virtual and global. We are regularly informed by people who never have to worry about student behaviour or school budgets that education has to be disrupted and “Uberised”. Meanwhile, teachers will come and go, not talking of the learning platform Michelangelo, getting on with planning lessons, teaching children to read, write and other pre-analogue skills that, with frustrating predictability, somehow manage to produce the people who seek to question their value in this machine-driven age. We wait. And while we wait, we mark some more essays. We wait some more. An internet minute begins to resemble the director’s cut of a Samuel Beckett play. The fact is that the AI revolution has not been actualised for most teachers. Indeed, it is not yet re-booted and suited, let alone ready to work in our schools.