In this episode of Class Disrupted, Diane and I welcomed my colleague Julia Freeland Fisher, the director of education research from the Clayton Christensen Institute. Our conversation explored the potential and challenges AI presents in the educational landscape with a particular focus on Julia’s concerns about AI's impact on human connection and the risk that AI could replace genuine interpersonal relationships.
Diane Tavenner:
Hey there, I'm Diane, and what you're about to hear is a conversation Michael and I recorded with our guest Julia Freeland Fisher as part of our series exploring the potential impact of AI in education. This is where we're interviewing optimists and skeptics, and I really enjoyed talking with Julia and keep thinking about a few key ideas from the conversation.
First, Julia's expertise related to social networks gives her a really important perspective on AI and the potential for it to either harm or help with social networking, which is such a critical factor in career and life opportunities for young people. She was really compelling in talking about how real experiences matter, and I think you're going to enjoy listening to her talk about how using AI to create what she calls infrastructure in digital experiences could enable young people to build social networks. Infrastructure is in contrast to sort of chatbots or agents, which are a really different experience.
The conversation caused me to deeply reflect on my own social network, how I created it, and how I use it, and how complex it is. And at the same time, I'm thinking a lot about a handful of young people I know and what their social network is currently, and how AI may or may not be interrupting them building the social networks that they need and will depend on in the future. And then I'm also thinking about that for me and my age and stage, and what does that mean?
It's been a fascinating rabbit hole that I'm really hopeful will yield some positive impacts on the product I'm building in the future, and how my behaviors as the leader of a company sort of evolve and respond to this moment in time. All of that to say, I truly cannot wait to thoroughly think through all of these ideas with Michael, but until then, I think you'll really enjoy this conversation we had with Julia.
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Future of Education to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
