Democratic Senators have sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona expressing concern about the increasing use of AI to monitor students’ online activity by public schools. The Democrats seem to be focused mostly on how it affects their preferred elite class of humans, the LGBTQ and non-whites, but the concerns they bring up should be troubling to any and all Americans whether or not, for now, it disproportionately affects the preferred classes of humans the Democrats most exploit to justify their own acts of oppression in the name meeting the plea of their particular needy.
“As for the scoundrel, his devices are evil. He plans wicked schemes to ruin the poor even when the plea of the needy is right. But he who is noble plans noble things, and on noble things he stands.” – Isaiah 32:7-8
From the letter:
… in the year since the release of the White House Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights (“Blueprint”), students have continued to experience harm through AI-driven technology, particularly in the area of civil rights.1 With the expansion of generative AI tools, student protections related to education technology are more urgent than ever. As you continue to implement the education-related priorities reflected in the Blueprint, we urge the Department to issue further guidance and take appropriate enforcement action concerning the application of civil rights laws to schools’ use of educational technology, including AI-driven technologies.
While the expansion of educational technology helped facilitate remote learning that was critical to students, parents, and teachers during the pandemic, these technologies have also amplified student harms. As recent research from the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) highlights, technologies that monitor student activity online, moderate and filter online content, and use predictive analytics raise serious concerns about the application of civil rights laws to schools’ use of these technologies. We are particularly concerned about the application of existing laws that protect students from discriminatory policies and outcomes related to sex, race, disability, and LGBTQ+ status.
As CDT’s research shows, two-thirds of teachers recently reported that a student at their school was disciplined due to AI-powered monitoring software, with disproportionate impacts for marginalized communities. Nineteen percent of LGBTQ+ students, for instance, reported they or someone they know was outed due to this software, and licensed special education teachers are more likely to report knowing students who have gotten in trouble and been contacted by law enforcement due to student activity monitoring.
Additionally, filtering and blocking software has recently been equated to a digital book ban, with one-third of teachers reporting that content associated with LGBTQ+ students and students of color is more likely to be restricted. And sixty percent of teachers report that their schools use algorithmic early warning systems that predict whether a student is dropping out of high school, some of which incorporate protected characteristics such as race, gender, and disability status. This research is particularly concerning due to linkages between school disciplinary policies and incarceration rates of our nation’s youth.
The letter was signed by Democratic congressmembers Lori Trahan, Sara Jacobs, Henry Johnson Jr, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and the paradigm of disinformation and totalitarian ideology, Adam Schiff.
As for the technology being used to check the content allowed in children’s public-school libraries, this writer has no issue with that. These Democrats seem to support child grooming, that is, sexually explicit material in public schools, and if the AI can be used to screen for that, so much the better. But expanding the use of AI to monitor the online activity of students, unless there is a warrant for such action (as in an actual plausible accusation is put forth that would warrant further investigation) this is a basic violation of human rights, and furthermore the actions condition children to accept authoritarianism as a normal course of action for the state, becoming inured to technological authoritarianism.
Where are the Republicans in calling out such a dystopian practice by state agencies (which government public schools are)? This writer supports the notion that children are not afforded the full rights of adults due to their inability to consent to all forms of action, such as sexual action (which these Democrats would most likely dismiss given their histrionics even in this letter in protest of children being given sexually explicit material, which most of the so-called pro-LGBTQ stuff turns out to be).
Yet, children should be afforded some basic rights, including the right to a fair trial, the right to due process, the right to protections against search and seizure without warrant, which this practice overtly violates.
We do not want to create a police state governed by AI, and we don’t want our children to be both guinea pigs of that Chinese Communist party reality nor the gateway through which the state inures not just our children to technological authoritarianism, but the adults as well.
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