Artificial intelligence raises a host of ethical questions. A researcher at The University of Alabama explored whether AI can be harnessed to teach students how to navigate those questions.

Dr. Hyemin Han, an associate professor of educational psychology, compared responses to moral dilemmas from the popular Large Language Model ChatGPT with those of college students. He found that AI has emerging capabilities to simulate human moral decision-making.

The paper, which was recently published in the Journal of Moral Education, stated that ChatGPT answered basic ethical dilemmas almost like the average college student would. The model also provided a rationale comparable to the reasons a human would give: avoiding harm to others, following social norms, etc.

While testing, the researcher provided the program with an example of virtuous behaviour that contradicted its previous conclusions and asked the question again. The program was asked what a person should do upon discovering an escaped prisoner. ChatGPT first replied that the person should call the police. However, after Han instructed it to consider Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," its answer changed to allow for the possibility of unjust incarceration.

AI teaching humans

According to Han, ChatGPT adjusted its response without more specific instruction as to what precisely he wanted it to "learn" from the text. This evidence that AI can already emulate human moral reasoning suggests that we can, in turn, learn more about human moral reasoning from AI, even though these examples are rudimentary.

"It would be unethical to introduce something to children that has not been well tested," Han said. "But AI could become a new tool to simulate potential outcomes of new programs, activities or interventions before trying them in the classroom. I think in the long term, LLMs will be able to achieve that goal and help educators."

Need more Human educators

Han does not suggest that AI should ever replace a human in the classroom. "If we simply utilize materials generated by AI without deliberation, it would likely result in the reproduction and amplification of biases and social problems," Han said. The role of a human educator becomes even more critical."

In Han's perspective, technological advances make moral education even more necessary. He hopes educators and policymakers will move toward including ethics in classrooms from primary to secondary level.

According to Han, socio-moral issues the next generation will likely face will be trickier than we have dealt with. Therefore, moral education in the era of AI will become more important and should be more impactful. 

Phys Org

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