Why ethics and safety are important in the use of artificial intelligence in education

Artificial intelligence (AI) is also permeating education today. It helps teachers with assessment, monitors the progress of teaching, offers personalized recommendations for students and automatically records various data. These technologies have great potential to make schoolwork more efficient and improve student outcomes. But at the same time, they bring with them new challenges that relate not only to technology, but also to fundamental values such as justice, privacy and responsibility.

In the school environment, students and teachers are confronted with decisions that can be influenced by AI on a daily basis. It may happen that the system recommends a certain direction of study to a pupil only on the basis of the past results of similar students, which may unconsciously limit their options. It can also happen that the automatic rating system misinterprets an answer that was creative but different from the template. If these decisions are made without the supervision of a teacher, they can cause injustice or frustration.

Ethical issues are extremely important in the use of AI in education, as they affect people in a sensitive period of development – pupils. School should be a place where everyone feels respected, understood and motivated. If AI is to be part of this environment, it must be designed and used to support these values. We cannot rely only on the fact that technology "works". We have to ask how it works, for whom it is advantageous and whether it does not disadvantage anyone.

At the same time, it is important to remember about safety considerations. AI often works with large amounts of data – test scores, class behavior, even personal preferences. This data can be sensitive and leaked can have serious consequences. Young people often don't realise that every click, every response and every delay in online work can be recorded. Therefore, it is essential that schools pay attention to secure data processing, use proven systems and inform pupils and parents about what is happening with their data.

Without an ethical and secure approach, the use of AI in education can do more harm than good. That's why it's not enough to just master technology – we need to learn to think about its implications, understand its limits, and ask questions that will protect the people it's supposed to serve. Ultimately, it's not just about efficiency, it's about trust, fairness and the human dimension of education.

Imagine that a student has written an essay that is being evaluated by an artificial intelligence system. The text was original, but it did not contain some of the "keywords" that the system expected. He received a lower rating than his classmates, whose text was less elaborate, but technically "exemplary". How would this student feel? Who should judge whether the evaluation was fair?

Questions for discussion:

• Who should be responsible for the error caused by AI?
• Is it right for AI to decide about a student's grades, future, or capabilities?
• What data do you think an AI system should never collect?

Ethical principles in the use of artificial intelligence in schools 

In the educational environment, the most important thing is not only what we teach, but also how we teach it and what values we promote in the process. With the advent of AI, educators, learners and educational technology developers alike face a new challenge: how to ensure that AI is used ethically, fairly and for the benefit of all involved. Ethics is not just a theoretical concept – it represents a set of values that protect the dignity, equality and freedom of the individual.

One of the basic ethical principles is justice. In practice, this means that AI should treat all students equally – regardless of their gender, ethnicity, language, performance or personal preferences. If the system provides recommendations for further study, it must not assume in advance who is "better" for technology and who is for the humanities. Justice means creating equal opportunities, not perpetuating existing inequalities.

Another important principle is transparency. Teachers and students should know how AI works – what data it uses to decide what it takes into account and what it doesn't. A computer "black box" that only announces the result without explanation can cause distrust or even harm to a student who does not know what he has done "wrong". Transparency also helps with feedback – when we know what the system is tracking, we can work on it in a targeted way.

Let us also not forget respect for privacy and dignity. Pupils, especially at a younger age, are often unaware that they are leaving a digital footprint when using digital tools. Therefore, it is important for AI systems to collect only the necessary data, protecting it from misuse while allowing the user to control what they share. This includes informed consent – no one should be part of a system they don't understand or agree with.

Finally, there is the principle of responsibility. Any system that affects people's lives must have a clearly identified bearer of responsibility. In a school setting, this means that the teacher should not trust AI recommendations unconditionally, but should see them as a tool. The responsibility lies with the person who uses the system – so they should know what they are doing, why they are doing it and what can come of it. Without this level of awareness, technology could become a tool that starts doing harm instead of helping.

Imagine that an online platform advises a student to engage in hands-on learning instead of theoretical learning. He justifies this by saying that his test results were below average. But you know that he just had a bad day and is usually strong in analysis.

If the teacher was only guided by the AI evaluation, he could recommend the student for another field of study.

The ethical question is: does technology have the right to decide without deeper context?

Questions to think about:

• How would you define fair decision-making in the school environment?
• Who should have the last word – AI, teacher or student?

Protection of pupil´s privacy and data

Modern technology and artificial intelligence are increasingly part of school life. While their benefits can be enormous – from personalized learning to automated assessments – they also bring with them serious questions about privacy and personal data security. These questions are all the more sensitive because they concern pupils – i.e. people who are not yet fully responsible for their digital decisions.

AI systems in education often collect and evaluate data on how a student learns, which tasks they do easily, where they make mistakes, how much time they devote to specific activities, and how they react during lessons. Sometimes it is also sensitive information, such as messages in chat tools, emotional reactions during online classes, or geographic location. This data can be useful to the system, as it helps to tailor the content to the needs of the individual. But they also pose a risk if they are not properly protected or if they are used without consent.

In schools, it should be a matter of course that no data is treated lightly. Every pupil – and in the case of minors also their parent – has the right to know what data is collected about them, what it is used for, how long it is stored and who has access to it. This right is not only moral, but also legally enshrined – for example, in the European GDPR regulation, which protects the personal data of all citizens, including students. The use of AI should never mean restricting privacy or the risk of information manipulation.

At the same time, it is important to emphasize that data protection is not only the responsibility of schools or system developers. Pupils themselves should also be taught digital literacy – the ability to recognise situations where data could be misused and to understand what it means to share personal information online. Ultimately, it's about working together—schools, teachers, students, developers, and parents—to create a secure environment where technology can serve its purpose without compromising privacy.

Did you know that digital school platforms collect data on their activity? Many think that it is just "clicking on tasks", but in reality, the time, frequency, type of answers and sometimes personal data are also tracked. That is why it is important to talk about data protection as well as the protection of personal space.

Questions to think about:

• Which data would you never want to share about yourself with the school system (e.g. MS Teams)? - Question to the teacher/student
• How should schools deal with students who don't want AI to collect their data?

Biases and fairness in AI tools

One of the most serious ethical challenges in the use of artificial intelligence in education is the issue of fairness. AI is not "neutral" or "objective" just because it is a technology. On the contrary, AI systems learn from the input data provided to them by humans – and these often contain various hidden biases, inequalities or stereotypes. These biases can then be passed on without the student or teacher realizing it.

Biases can already arise in the data that AI processes. For example, if the number of girls successful in math has historically been lower, the AI system may start to assume that girls are less likely to succeed in technical fields. However, this is not true – it is only a statistical reflection of the past, not a fair view of the future. If such assumptions become part of the system's decision-making, discrimination can occur without bad faith, but with a real negative impact on the future of individuals.

However, the problem is not only demographic prejudices. AI can be biased against learners who learn differently, who have special educational needs, or whose language skills do not correspond to the majority normative. Instead of supporting their development, AI can unfairly evaluate them as weaker, just because their expression differs from the average. In such cases, technology may inadvertently exacerbate the inequalities that it should help overcome.

Therefore, fairness in AI means actively seeking and eliminating these inequalities. It is not enough to believe that the system "will be fair" if we do not explicitly tell it so. Developers need to purposefully test how their tools work with different groups of students. Schools should monitor whether the results of assessments are balanced across genders, regions or language skills. And teachers must be prepared to intervene if they see that the AI system is making disproportionate or dishonest decisions.

When justice is not self-evident in one country, a system was deployed to recommend secondary schools. AI evaluated students according to a combination of grades, behavior, and interests. It was later found that the system systematically recommended technical majors to boys and humanities majors to girls, even though they had comparable results. The reason for this was data that reflected the historical distribution of professions, not the abilities of students.

Questions to think about:

• Do you think technology can be "biased"? Why yes or no?

Use AI safely and responsible in the classroom

The introduction of artificial intelligence into teaching is not just a technical matter. It is mainly a decision about how we want to educate and what responsibility we are willing to share with technology. Using AI in school means having a powerful tool at your disposal that can simplify a teacher's work, improve student learning, and bring new forms of support. At the same time, however, it requires that it be approached with prudence, critical thinking and an emphasis on safety.

Responsible use of AI in the classroom means that technology must not replace the teacher, but should complement him. The teacher remains the one who understands the context, knows the individual needs of the pupils and can distinguish when it is appropriate to follow the recommendation of the system and when not. At the same time, it is important for students to understand how AI works, what it is for, and what they can expect from it. If AI evaluates something, they should be able to ask, "Why did the system recommend this?" or "Is this really right for me/the student?"

Safe use also applies to the choice of tools themselves. Schools should only use proven systems that guarantee the protection of personal data, allow transparency of decision-making and do not work with any hidden mechanisms. Free apps without clear data protection policies or tools that collect data without the user's knowledge should be avoided. Trust between teacher, student and technology is only built when the rules are clear, open and fair.

No less important is the development of critical thinking in pupils. AI can suggest an answer, solve an example, or even write text – but not always correctly. Therefore, students should learn to check facts, compare multiple sources, and think about how the system arrived at the result. In this way, AI will become a tool for development, not just a helper to circumvent the effort. The teacher plays a key role in this process as a guide who guides students to responsible and active learning even in the digital age.

The digital balance of AI can be a great helper, but it is not appropriate for it to become the center of all learning. Some experts recommend the 80:20 rule – technology should encourage learning, but not drive it. The teacher should always be able to intervene in the decision-making process and explain to students when AI has "misunderstood" something.

Questions to think about:

• As a teacher, when would you reject an AI tool's recommendation?
• How would you recognize that a student is abusing AI instead of learning?

Conclusion

The use of AI in education brings great opportunities, but at the same time requires a sensitive and responsible approach. If AI is to help learners and teachers, it must be used fairly, transparently and with respect for everyone's rights. Ethical principles such as equality, privacy, responsibility, and critical thinking should be at the core of every technology-related decision. School remains a place where people should come first – and AI should be a tool, not a replacement. Creating a safe and fair digital environment is a shared task for teachers, learners and developers alike. If we approach AI wisely, it can become a valuable tool that empowers human capabilities, not replaces them.