Event overview
Dr Jeremy Knox (University of Oxford) visits Goldsmiths to discuss his research about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and education.
This event is hosted by the School of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies (MCCS) as part of the MCCS Community Lectures series. It is open to all staff, students, and members of the public.
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This talk will develop an experimental application of Agamben’s (2004) concept of the anthropological machine in order to examine the ways ‘human’ teaching is distinguished from the functioning of AI in policy and commercial ‘Ed Tech’ promotion. Examples of Department for Education (DfE) policy in the UK, as well as promotional material from OpenAI, will be analysed to suggest different ways in which the ‘human’ aspects of teaching are differentiated and justified, while advocating for widespread adoption of automated AI technologies across the education sector.
Drawing on Agamben’s work, such efforts will be suggested, not only to be contradictory, fabricated, and overly simplistic accounts of conducive human-machine relations, but also to conceal a profound and troubling sub-divisioning of the teaching profession, with the potential to undermine public education. This will highlight the ways in which some forms of pedagogical labour are unacknowledged and delegitimised, while other kinds of teaching roles are (re)made, involving a rearticulation of the expectations and responsibilities of the professional teacher.
The talk will conclude by situating these educational concerns within the wider unravelling of social relationships exacerbated by AI, and gesture towards the more radical theories of hybrid human-technology entanglements that might inform a social justice orientation to teaching in an era of automated and data-driven technologies.
Speaker:
Dr Jeremy Knox is Associate Professor of Digital Education at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, and an Official Fellow of Kellogg College. His research interests include the relationships between education, data-driven technologies, and wider society, and he has led projects funded by the ESRC and the British Council in the UK. Jeremy has previously served as co-Director of the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh, and currently co-convenes the Society for Research in Higher Education Digital University network. His published work includes AI and Education in China (2023), Data Justice and the Right to the City (2022), The Manifesto for Teaching Online (2020), Artificial Intelligence and Inclusive Education (2019), and Posthumanism and the Massive Open Online Course (2016).
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 22 Oct 2025 | 5:00pm - 7:00pm |
Accessibility
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