Abstract Book of the 8th International Conference on Innovative Research in Education
Year: 2025
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A.I. and the Normalization of a Nuclear Renaissance?Human Education and Worthwhile Curriculum in the Anthropocene
Jason Goulah
ABSTRACT:
This study in Value-Creating Education for Global Citizenship examines A.I. as curriculum relative to the “nuclear Anthropocene” (Max Planck Institute, 2023). Framed theoretically by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, 2015), Schubert’s (2009) “worthwhile” question of curriculum studies, and Ikeda Daisaku’s (1988-2015) peacebuilding approaches to A.I., nuclear disarmament, and ningen kyōiku, or “human education” (comprising dialogue, value creation, global citizenship, and creative coexistence and means and ends), the study: 1.) interrogates A.I.’s growing normalization of a nuclear renaissance imbricated in its development (Castelvecchi, 2024), and thus 2.) considers how A.I. redefines not just what and how we teach, but why. A.I. promises to address various SDGs (Vinuesa et al., 2020) but significantly contributes to climate change (Cowls et al., 2023), causing A.I. executives to promote nuclear power as a “clean” energy source (Stover, 2024). This poses an existential double bind that warrants attention in education—where nuclearity has remained abstract and largely absent. A.I.-driven advancement of nuclear energy raises the likelihood of increased catastrophes (Chernobyl, 1986; Fukushima, 2011) and the production, stockpiling, use, and A.I.weaponization of nuclear arms (IAEA, 2023). Underpinning all this is a geopolitical landscape threatening anocracies and nuclear war (IAEA, 2023). Employing critical discourse and bilingual analytic methods (Goulah & He, 2015; Rogers, 2004), and centered on the Declaration on Global Education (2022) and new UNESCO Recommendation on Education for Peace and Human Rights, International Understanding, Cooperation, Fundamental Freedoms, Global Citizenship and Sustainable Development (2023), the study problematizes this AI nuclear renaissance in education and offers recommendations.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Declaration on Global Education, Ikeda Daisaku, Nuclear (Disarmament), Sustainable Development Goals