Digitalization and A.I. as Challenges and Chances for Future Teaching and Teacher Education: A Reflection

Digitalization as a key issue of society is increasingly a topic in school. Authorities like the recently deceased scientist Stephen Hawking and the founder and ceo of Tesla, Elon Musk, see both challenges and chances in the developing artificial intelligence (A.I.). Musk remarked: “A.I. will be the best or worst thing ever for humanity” (cnbc 1 2017). The solution, Musk said, is to increase regulatory oversight of the development and implementation of A.I. immediately: “AI is a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation than be reactive.” (cnbc 2 2017). Stephen Hawking emphasizes the same point: “The emergence of A.I. could be the “worst event in the history of our civilization” unless society finds a way to control its development (…). Success in creating effective A.I. could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. Or the worst. We just don't know.” Hawking said during a talk at the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2017. (cnbc 3 2017). In view of these considerations and in regard to the meaning for education in school the question arises: Which topics and competencies should be presented to pupils against the background of the rapid processing in the field of digitalization and the corresponding uncertainty of topics and competencies that could be of importance in some years and decades? Verbalized differently: What does sustainable education for our future include? The answer will be aimed at the teaching and acquirement of basic competencies in general and in the field of digitalization. What should this “basic education” include? Another question is: How is it possible to combine learning processes in a “virtual reality” with learning processes in a “natural reality”? Further considerations are given in this article.