Journal of East China Normal University(Educational Sciences) ›› 2024, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (8): 64-75.doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2024.08.006

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Potential Risks of the Application of General Large Model Education and Their Avoidance: From the Perspective of Technology Ethics

Di Wu, Hejiang Wu   

  1. Educational Informatization Strategy Research Base of the Ministry of Education (Central China), Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
  • Accepted:2024-04-11 Online:2024-08-01 Published:2024-07-23

Abstract:

The rapid popularization of the general large model represented by ChatGPT in education industry may lead to systematic reform and even ecological reconstruction of education. While the ethical issues that can arise from the use of technology in education have been a concern for many years, never has the educational application of general large model raised such concerns about the ethics of technology. On the one hand, the basic principle of the effect of technology on educational activities is homogeneous, so the types of ethical risks in the application of general large model education are similar compared with the past. However, due to the different level of intelligence, the degree of risks may aggravate traditional ethical problems. In terms of educational security, the privacy theft of educational subjects and organizations may aggravate the security crisis of educational process, and ideological infiltration may aggravate the security crisis of educational outcome. In terms of educational relationship, it may aggravate the teachers’ fear and worship of technology in the teacher-machine relationship, and the students’ addiction to technology in the machine-student relationship. From the aspect of education equity, it may aggravate the inequity of education starting point and expand the inequity of education result. On the other hand, general large model has special technical basis and characteristics, which brings more subversive changes to education and leads to new alienation phenomenon, which may produce new ethical risks. From the aspect of education security, the adversarial attack risk of large model system may make students face algorithm regulation and produce new cognitive security problems, and the emergence of model ability may make generative AI out of control in education application. In terms of educational relationship, the “man-machine” cooperative education model may hinder the emotional and ideological exchange between teachers and students. In terms of educational equity, users may be treated unfairly by the general model without being aware of it, and the fairness of the educational process may be difficult to guarantee. In order to avoid the ethical risks that may arise from the application of general large model in education, attention should be paid to ensuring the moralization of general large model at production level, specifying the guidance for general large model in education application practice level, establishing the supervision system for general large model in education application at management level, and strengthening the theoretical research on the technical ethics of education industry in the intelligent era at the research level.

Key words: general large model, technical ethics, education security, educational relationships, equity in education