The widespread rhetoric and programs of digitalization in education have recently been joined by an increasing emphasis on AI, robotics and big data. Keywords such as “digital education”, “AI literacy”, “educational robotics”, “teacher robots” or “learning analytics” refer to international discourses and developments that have become globally significant. The focus is often on future promises in terms of learning technologies that emphasize the advantages of automation, datafication, digitalization and AI for teachers and learners as well as for educational institutions and researchers. However, among the various future technologies that are relevant in many discussions about the future of education, developments in AI and robotics play a special role. This is not only about computational thinking, AI literacy or educational robotics in STEM and STEAM contexts, but also about diverse claims of the utilization of AI and robotics in education in general. Accordingly, these discourses are also about robots as teachers, personalized learning companions and assistive educational technologies. On the one hand, algorithms are among the constitutive elements of robots and along with technological developments, there are also various debates about questions of machine ethics, robot ethics and ethics of algorithms. On the other hand, the question arises as to what extent concepts of moral machines, ethical design and artificial morality are relevant and viable when human learners and learning machines come together in formal educational contexts. While ideas of automating learning processes are not new in the history of education and learning, current developments are linked to historically new challenges with regard to pedagogical autonomy, forms of subjectivisation, the quality of pedagogical relations and the distribution of responsibilities. This contribution explores corresponding ethical issues at the interfaces between humanism, digital humanism and critical posthumanism.

Coeckelbergh, Mark (2024): What is digital humanism? A conceptual analysis and an argument for a more critical and political digital (post)humanism. Journal of Responsible Technology,17, 100073. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrt.2023.100073 Herbrechter, Stefan et al. (2022): Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04958-3 Hug, Theo (2024): Robots as Teachers? Perspectives on Media Education in the Age of Machine Learning. In: Nyíri, Kristóf (ed.), Envisioning an Electrifying Future. Budapest / Pécs: Hungarian Academy of Sciences / University of Pécs, pp. 117-125. http://www.hunfi.hu/nyiri/EEE/VOLUME/VOLUME.pdf. Knox, Jeremy; Williamson, Ben; Bayne, Sian (2020): Machine behaviourism: future visions of ‘learnification’ and ‘datafication’ across humans and digital technologies. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(1), pp. 31-45, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2019.1623251. OECD (2021): OECD Digital Education Outlook 2021: Pushing the Frontiers with Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Robots. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/589b283f-en Peters, Michael A. (2020): Roboethics in education and society. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 52:1, 11-16, DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2019.1602890. Selwyn, Neil (2019): Should Robots Replace Teachers? AI and the Future of Education. Cambridge/UK: Polity Press. Williamson, Ben; Eynon, Rebecca (2020): Historical threads, missing links, and future directions in AI in education. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(3), pp. 223-235, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2020.1798995