Research and innovation play significant roles for progress. With progress, debate follows. Major innovations throughout history, while often beneficial, also cause concern and disruption, whether military innovations like the atom bomb, economic innovations such as the free market, or work innovations like the assembly line. Usually, debates surrounding concerns are confined to academics or industrialists. However, the recent eruption of the progress of artificial intelligence has caused almost universal consternation. Universities, corporations, military institutions, banks, and even K-12 schools express concern and debate the challenges of AI. We’ve heard stories about AI systems lying to get humans to do their work, or suggesting one researcher leave his wife for the system, and recently Elon Musk and other scientists have called for a halt to the “AI race”. This almost universal reaction has led us to ask deep, existential questions about the role of research, innovation, and technology, about its effects on knowledge and education, and about an inconceivably changed future.

Speaker Biography

Michael Menchaca
University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, United States

Michael Menchaca is Chair of the Department of Learning Design and Technology at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. He specialises in distance education, and has designed, implemented, and coordinated online and hybrid programs for over 20 years. He serves as editor for the IAFOR Journal of Education: Technologies and Education Special Edition. He was an IT specialist for many years in the public and private sector. He teaches and conducts research in the areas of online learning, technology integration, and social justice with technology.

About the Presenter(s)
Michael Menchaca is Chair of the Department of Learning Design and Technology at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.

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