‘Preserving humanity in a digital world’. University professors on life in the IT world and training of future teachers
Tatiana Chernigovskaya, Director of the Institute for Cognitive Studies at St Petersburg University, and Elena Kazakova, Director of the Institute of Pedagogy at St Petersburg University, have spoken at the international conference of the Russian Academy of Education ‘Prospects for Development of Research in Education Sciences’.
How will artificial and natural intelligence coexist?
In her presentation on cognitive science and pedagogy, Tatiana Chernigovskaya suggested discussing the role of artificial intelligence in the modern world and educating new generations in the digital world.
According to Tatiana Chernigovskaya, our time poses particularly acute existential questions to mankind. Who are we? What would we like our future to be? Who do we need to educate and train to make it happen? ‘Now is the time to understand this because we are surrounded by digital monsters, and they are multiplying. We have become so carried away that we do not allow ourselves to calm down, turn off the gadgets and think about what kind of future we want,’ the University professor pointed out the problem. ‘You can stand up against it or not, but natural and artificial intelligence will coexist in this world. This is simply a fact you cannot deny. But how will the roles be distributed and with whom will we have to agree on this?’
Scientists around the world are working on artificial intelligence for a variety of reasons. Some research teams are modelling such systems to understand how natural intelligence or the human brain works, others to improve our lives by entrusting machines to do dangerous jobs or complex tasks, such as analysing big data, that humans are unable to cope with. At the same time, however, there is also discussion in the professional community about improving humans themselves with the help of artificial intelligence. They want not to develop them as individuals, but to increase their memory and make them 'smarter'. There is even talk of digitising the mental and emotional world and thereby achieving immortality.
Albert Einstein wrote that without an ethical culture, humanity has no future. We can buy any equipment and spend trillions of dollars on science, but without it everything will be in vain.
Professor Tatiana Chernigovskaya, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Education, Director of the Institute for Cognitive Studies at St Petersburg University.
‘The cognitive science I work in includes not only the fields of neuroscience, linguistics and philosophy, but also art in a broad sense and, I dare say, even theology. This is because these are the realms of the human. If we play with mechanical devices, we can give them up, but by doing so we will amputate all of humanity,’ emphasised Tatiana Chernigovskaya.
Tatiana Chernigovskaya, Director of the Institute for Cognitive Studies at St Petersburg University, reported that the capabilities of artificial intelligence algorithms are gradually expanding: while previously a programme could beat a chess grandmaster, now professional players in such complex logic games as go and shogi lose to the computer. AlphaZero neural network can get from zero to the point where it will beat any person or programme by playing a million games in 24 hours. What is much more dangerous, noted Tatiana Chernigovskaya, is that the systems have become capable of a sort of intuition, which used to be considered a purely human property.
‘This programme has come up with a kind of “artificial intuition”: for example, when playing chess, it leads the partner into a zugzwang. The player goes down the path of failure, believing he has caught his opponent, and makes several moves and gets trapped,’ said Tatiana Chernigovskaya, Professor of St Petersburg University. ‘The semantic gap between intuition and logic is overcome, and it looks like a cognitive attack or even a civilisational challenge to our ideas about human intellectual capacity. My point is that digital things have crossed the line and can outplay us if we don't wake up.’
Summing up, Tatiana Chernigovskaya said that the world has ceased to be human-dimensional and that people need to be able to negotiate in order not to lose bearings and sense of reality. ‘We need to learn to live in a digital world and retain our humanity. Mass surveys of schoolchildren and students about a figure of an ideal teacher show that it should not be someone who knows a lot, but someone who is willing to listen, able to show warmth, sympathy and help. They have a great need for empathy,’ she reported. ‘Of course, we should use the data that has already been obtained by cognitive sciences, and the Russian Academy of Education is conducting research of this kind. Both pedagogy and cognitive science face many challenges. The problem is that science and the international community seem to live in two parallel worlds, and people do not care about science. We have therefore to make sure that the results of our work reach them.’
‘The modern teacher is open to the world’
During her presentation, Elena Kazakova, Director of the Institute of Pedagogy at St Petersburg University, presented key problems in teacher training that need urgent solutions and talked about the search for new values for the profession.
Elena Kazakova said that the question of meanings becomes especially important for the professional community when its representatives start to think about: what needs to be done in the next few years; and what significant problems need to be overcome by the professional training system in one way or another. The list of these issues includes the planning of the educational environment. This implies not only the familiar classroom and school space, but also encompasses broader areas, including quantoriums and the Internet space. In addition, many experts now firmly believe that educational activities should not only be individual, but also collaborative. Distributed motivation, joint goal setting, and goal achievement were thoroughly studied in Soviet pedagogy, and there is an opinion that they should be returned to in the 21st century. Emotional support of students is equally important: research shows that teacher's confidence in students' abilities helps them to achieve better results. Separately, Elena Kazakova, Director of the Institute of Pedagogy of St Petersburg University, pointed out that today's education system needs teachers who love to learn and who can inspire their students by their own example.
'Together with a group of students, the young participants of the Pedagogical Forum, we tried to articulate the core values and present the image of a teacher who is needed today,' said Elena Kazakova. 'He or she is passionate about learning, able to work in a multi-age team that consists not only of students but also of their parents and their colleagues. The modern teacher is open to the world, curious, and has a developed research culture. He is a person who knows how to make choices and take responsibility for them. They are culturally competent, flexible, resilient and possess a sense of humour, without which it seems impossible to survive our era.’
The global and rapid expansion of computer technology has led researchers to raise the question of its impact on education. For example, more than 70% of Russian teachers believe that digitalisation will lead to the replacement of a teacher by a ‘digital equivalent’ and that real education will only be available to a ‘few chosen’, despite the fact that the basis for such doubts was laid by material published in the low-quality media. 'Thinking about digitalisation, we can't help but draw on research evidence from the late 20th century. They show that the computer can only be a factor in the quality of education when the student is the subject of their own education. Otherwise, it is only entertainment and a waste of time,' said Elena Kazakova. 'A subjective position of a student, free choice, qualitative feedback, and the presence of a professional community are data that have been recorded in longitudinal international studies, in which our scientists have also taken part. And today, when addressing individual technological issues, it is very important for us to keep this in mind because "digitalisation" for us is both a governmental goal and a means of achieving certain goals, an additional resource, and a risk.’
Concluding her speech, Elena Kazakova, Director of the Institute of Pedagogy at St Petersburg University, named the challenges to be overcome by the pedagogical community. For example, she noted that private lessons have become a mass practice not only in the country, but also in the world. This demonstrates the persistent low efficiency of the teaching and learning process, and cases of its effective use are exceptionally rare. It is becoming evident that the teaching and learning process itself needs to be renewed. Schools continue to exploit the motives of fear and duty as an incentive for education. The training of future teachers is conducted in a lecture and seminar style, despite the fact that a fundamentally different experience is demanded. Also, Elena Kazakova added that in transition to e-learning, it is not enough to replace the ‘live talking head’ with an electronic one. This is often the case in higher education institutions and on educational platforms.
The International Scientific and Practical Conference 'Prospects for Development of Research in Education Sciences' was held at the Russian Academy of Education in the framework of the Year of Science and Technology. Among the participants were: representatives of educational authorities; leading Russian and foreign scholars; heads and teachers of educational institutions; and representatives of the professional community.