Some time ago I invited Katie (Kathryn) Conrad onto a discussion panel in the Generative Dialogues series, and while this covered some essential ground in AI pedagogies, I felt there was a lot more of her work to dig into. So I was delighted she agreed to come onto Imperfect Offerings for a deeper dive, particularly into her Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights in Education.
Katie is a Professor of English at Kansas University and co-director of the AI & Digital Literacy project, in partnership with the National Humanities Center, as well as Associate Editor of the journal Critical AI. Her Blueprint was one of the first things coming out of the AI tailspin that really spoke to me - and I increasingly think a human rights based approach is critical - not only in the negative sense that the inequities of AI threaten so many legally enshrined rights (equality, non-discrimination, freedom of thought and expression for example) but also in a positive sense.
We need something in which to ground our ideas about humanity, in opposition to definitions of ‘the human’ emerging from the AI industry as a kind of host species for ‘intelligence’, and then as an inverse or supplement or deficiency in relation to whatever ‘artificial’ intelligence is supposed to be capable of. Human rights is a way of thinking about being human means that - for all its imperfections - starts from our common vulnerability and dependence on each other, and therefore our equality. Human rights have a long history of collective thought and action, and shared institutions that seemed robust until quite recently.
So it was the connection between education and rights, and Katie’s intentions in developing the blueprint, that I really wanted to talk about. As ever, we ranged well beyond our original brief. Here are links to some of the resources we touched on.
Links
The Blueprint https://criticalai.org/2023/07/17/a-blueprint-for-an-ai-bill-of-rights-for-education-kathryn-conrad/
NORRAG Policy Insights: AI and Digital Inequities (including a chapter by Katie and Lauren Goodlad) https://resources.norrag.org/storage/documents/NllPZ3GRhnWCbiMFcG0tUv5qxOt4snLAVxpOwgsN.pdf
Katie’s Critical Digital Literacy resources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TAXqYGid8sQz8v1ngTLD1qZBx2rNKHeKn9mcfWbFzRQ/
Katie’s blog: https://kconrad.substack.com/
Artificial Intelligence in Education: a critical view through the lens of human rights, democracy and the rule of law: https://rm.coe.int/artificial-intelligence-and-education-a-critical-view-through-the-lens/1680a886bd
Pedagogies of Generative AI: podcast with Helen and Mark Carrigan from May last year, with Katie and others:
Critical AI journal: https://www.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai
Marc Watkins’ Rhetorica: marcwatkins.substack.com
Thresholds in Education https://academyforeducationalstudies.org/journals/thresholds/
Maha Bali’s blog on critical AI literacies: https://blog.mahabali.me/educational-technology-2/what-i-mean-when-i-say-critical-ai-literacy/
Report to the UN General Assembly on AI in Education: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a79520-artificial-intelligence-education-report-special-rapporteur-right
Harvard’s AI Pedagogy Project: creative and critical engagement with AI in education: https://aipedagogy.org/
The Data Sovereignty CARE principles: https://www.gida-global.org/care
Melanie Dusseau’s Burn It Down piece for Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2024/11/12/burn-it-down-license-ai-resistance-opinion
Roderic N Crooks: ‘Access is capture’ - on how edtech reproduces racial inequality: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/access-is-capture/paper
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