Teaching Days: UNAK-AI

The Teaching Days of the Teaching Academy begin on Friday, March 13th and last for a whole week until Friday, March 20th, where the public universities organize open and in-person events in all departments of the University of Iceland and the other public schools. 

Lecture hosted by the University of Akureyri at 12:00-13:00. Illusion of efficiency: How AI-induced convenience in the education system creates cognitive debt. Magnús Smári Smárason. In room M102 at the University of Akureyri and livestreamed. Here is a link to the livestream. 

AI solution marketing often promises to free us from the "form" so we can focus on the "content." This is an epistemological illusion that serves productivity requirements but betrays education. When we outsource thinking to language models—whether it's the teacher of reviewing or the student of writing texts—we sacrifice intellectual friction, which is the main driver of critical thinking. We are not liberating the mind but building up a "cognitive debt" in which the ability to analyze independently deteriorates continuously. 

If efficiency replaces necessary friction, then who are we graduating? The implementation of education in the age of AI cannot be easier. It must be challenging for both students and teachers, because only in this way can we be shaped as human beings who think, not only as intermediaries between the output of machines and reality. Link to the event on the University of Akureyri website. 

Magnús Smári Smárason is a project manager in the field of artificial intelligence at the University of Akureyri. The talk is based on his master's thesis, Beyond Fragmentation, where he presents a critical, values-based approach to AI governance and examines the concept of "cognitive debt", which is one of the main threads of the talk. On his website, www.smarason.is, he shares more detailed material about his research, software development, and responsible governance in AI.