As expected, the exhibition floor at the Bett 2025 show this past January was dominated by AI-related offerings.
There were a considerable number of companies showing off the ways in which their AI solutions could help teachers and leaders take care of their student assessments, of course – but also some less obvious applications of AI, such as delivering feedback, creating resources and… helping to catch dastardly vapers in the school toilets, apparently. You can view our roving reporters’ highlights of the event here.
Inevitable though the AI Bett blitz was, it still served as a striking reminder of just how hard and fast companies operating in the edtech space – from the biggest players, to the newest start-ups – have gone all-in on the technology. A fortnight earlier, the AI industry had received the blessing of no less a figure than Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who assured us that, “AI is the way to secure growth, to raise living standards, put money in people’s pockets, create exciting new companies and transform our public services.”
And sure, some of those AI demonstrations at Bett did seem impressive, making short work of marking and grading tasks that might otherwise take hours to complete. So why do so many – myself included, admittedly – feel somewhat wary in response to AI’s rapid adoption and integration into the daily technologies we’ve come to rely on in our professional and personal lives?
“Why do so many – myself included, admittedly – feel somewhat wary in response to AI’s rapid adoption?”
For me, it’s partly to do with how the same generative AI technologies – albeit via a number of different models – readily enable activities both innocuous (whipping up a list of maths questions, summarising the lengthy minutes of yesterday’s staff meeting) and nefarious (deepfakes, financial scams, cheating at homework assignments). Maybe I’ve got it wrong. After all, there were plenty of teachers, employers and public officials expressing similar sentiments about this new-fangled ‘internet’ thing back in the mid 90s.
But then I read that the US and UK were the only non-signatories to a declaration calling for policies “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy” at the recent Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris. Sixty other countries signed the pledge – China, India, France and Canada among them – so why didn’t we?
The US provided no official explanation. According to a spokesperson for Starmer, “We felt that the declaration didn’t provide enough practical clarity on global governance and [didn’t] sufficiently address harder questions around national security and the challenge that AI poses to it.”
Let’s hope that the UK government receives the clarity it demands soon. Because a little openness, ethical awareness and transparency with respect to AI technologies doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
Enjoy the issue,
Callum Fauser – Editor
callum.fauser@theteachco.com
