Many hands, many futures: communities in all their diversity shaping the flows of data and models—rather than being shaped by them.
Society & AI is about bending technology toward public purpose, with educators, families, and civic institutions co-designing and governing tools that serve human dignity.
To my colleagues in education across the globe,
On this World Teachers’ Day (October 5), we celebrate a profession that stands at the very heart of society. It is you, the educators, who cultivate the human potential that allows our collective life to flourish. You steward the transmission of knowledge, navigate the complexities of human development, and lay the foundations upon which just and prosperous futures are built. It is in recognition of this profound role that I have chosen today to launch the Society & AI Research Group—not as a collection of technological solutions, but as a scholarly commons dedicated to a future that begins and ends with your work.
The journey to this day has been a professional and personal inquiry, driven by a set of persistent, galvanizing questions. As a learning scientist and education technologist, I have witnessed the accelerating integration of artificial intelligence into the delicate ecosystems of our classrooms. This has led me to ask: Whose values are we encoding into these systems? How do we ensure that AI-driven tools amplify the art of teaching rather than automate it? And most critically, how can we design a future where technology serves pedagogy, rather than the other way around?
These are not abstract concerns. They are urgent, practical challenges that will define the landscape of education for generations to come. The risk is a future where efficiency eclipses equity, where algorithms designed in distant centers impose a sterile uniformity on the rich, diverse act of learning. The opportunity, however, is a future where AI becomes a powerful partner in the human-centered work you do every day.
This brings me to the core mission of the Society & AI Research Group: to advance a society-centered approach to AI. For educators, this means a commitment to building tools and frameworks that augment your craft, not replace it. It means rejecting the paradigm of automation in favor of what can be called “collaborative intelligence”—a partnership between human judgment and computational capability. Imagine an AI co-pilot that reduces your administrative burden, freeing you to focus on mentoring a struggling student. Picture a system that helps you design culturally responsive materials that resonate deeply with your learners. This is not a distant dream; it is the tangible outcome of a design process that honors and centers your professional wisdom.
The work of building this future cannot be done in isolation. Technology designed for education has too often failed to understand the lived realities of the classroom. Therefore, this research group is founded on a principle of deep collaboration. I position it as a scholarly commons—an open, intellectual space where educators, researchers, and practitioners can come together to shape the next horizon of educational research and practice.
I extend a sincere invitation to you to be an active participant in this mission. Your insights, your critiques, and your lived experiences are not merely data points; they are the most valuable form of expertise we have. This research group will succeed only if it becomes a place where your wisdom guides our inquiry. We invite you to engage with our research, to challenge our assumptions, and to join a global conversation about the tools we must build and the values we must defend.
Our vision is for a future where technology is held accountable to the highest ideals of education. A future where AI helps us measure what truly matters—curiosity, creativity, and wellbeing—not just what is easily tested. A future where every learner, in every community, has access to tools that respect their dignity and expand their agency.
This vision is ambitious, but on World Teachers’ Day, we are reminded that the work of shaping the future has always been your charge. The arc of society bends toward the values you instill in your classrooms. It is with profound respect for this role that our work begins now, with you.
