Will AI end education as we know it? Economist predicts schools, teachers could become 'obsolete'

With the surge in growth of artificial intelligence, fears over the new technology have experts weighing in on what impact it will have on U.S. education. 

One economist warned that the technology will eventually lead to the elimination of teaching. 

"One of the jobs that is likely to be eliminated by A.I. is teaching," Euro Pacific Asset Management chief economist Peter Schiff told FOX News Digital. "I think certainly for elementary school education K through 12. I think at the end of the day, schools will be obsolete. The teachers, the administrators, the unions, the whole bureaucracy."

Palm Beach Atlantic University professor of communication and Supper Honors Program director Dr. Tom St. Antoine argued, however, the technology presents educators with a "really good opportunity."

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"In colleges and universities, we've been sort of obsessed with A.I. technology because for a lot of people, it poses little challenges like plagiarism and it sort of devalues the ability to do original work. So it's something that gets talked about a lot on universities," St. Antoine told FOX News Digital. "In the midst of all that sort of hand-wringing, I've seen it as a really good opportunity. I welcome those conversations because I think it sort of puts a spotlight on the fact that universities have been promising to give students something that really is outside our strength. It's outside what a true university education can offer."

Similarly to the rise of the internet, artificial intelligence has already made its way into the education system from ChatGPT to even teaching college courses at some of the nation's most prestigious universities. 

ChatGPT is a generative AI chatbot capable of having conversations with humans, suggesting edits to computer programming code, writing songs, poems, movie scripts and more. In education, ChatGPT has been a controversial tool some teachers perceive as a threat to traditional pedagogy.

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Many students have been utilizing the technology for schoolwork and assignments, including essay writing. AI has also proven to be a useful tool in helping students with their college applications. 

Schiff argues the potential transformation of education from human teaching to A.I. is a "wonderful" thing, noting economic and social benefits. 

"People's property taxes could go down dramatically if we don't need those public schools. But also, it's going to be a great leveling field because, right now, kids who are in affluent communities who are born to wealthier parents, as you know, even if they're in the public schools, they're in a much better public school than some kid born in the inner city. AI is going to level the playing field for everybody," Schiff said.

"Everybody is going to have access to the same level of teaching at virtually no cost through AI. And so people will be able to educate themselves from home with using artificial intelligence more efficiently and better and faster than the current system."

Teachers and schools across the country are taking action to address the rise of new technology, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one of the nations's largest teachers' unions.

For example, New York City Public Schools banned ChatGPT in classrooms earlier this year only to reverse course after weighing educational benefits the technology provides.

The AFT published a resolution earlier this summer that called for "advanced technologies to be developed and employed ethically. It urges governments to implement strict regulations protecting privacy, security and well-being. And it calls for social media and AI technologies that adhere to principles of equity, fair access and social accountability."

Among several matters of concern, the resolution noted "AFT leaders in higher education expressed concern that fiscal pressures may push public colleges and universities toward even more online learning. And public employees who work in federal, state and local public service fear their jobs may be increasingly outsourced to chatbots and other robots."

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Even the founder of an A.I. company conceded the technology's impact of education is "inevitable."

"AI in education is as inevitable as the internet or a search engine, which also people were skeptical about in the beginning," said Julia Dixon, a former tutor who created ES.AI, a generative AI tool for college applications. "Students who never use AI and those kinds of resources that can really up-level the work that they're doing are going to be at a disadvantage."

"The sooner that students can get familiar with this tech, the more ahead they'll be in the rest of the education and professional world," she continued. 

Echoing Schiff's sentiment, digital technology entrepreneur David Espindola told FOX News Digital in April that AI developments would help America's "broken" education system.

Schiff also argued the educational opportunities presented by A.I. means individuals will have the opportunity to be "better educated" and may be able to bypass higher education. As concerns over the cost of tuition and worries over student loans often plague college attendees, Schiff argues A.I. learning is a huge "positive."

"Fewer people will need to go to college and even college level courses can be done [with] A.I which means that there'll be no more student loans. People won't be 20, 23 years old, starting out in life with a huge mortgage and no house," he explained.

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St. Antoine, who works on a college campus, said while it's "certainly possible" A.I. could have an impact on enrollment, there are a "myriad" of other issues causing more people to reconsider higher education. 

"It may be hard to isolate A.I. as kind of a one cause for declining college enrollments," he said. "There may be a headwind in a number of other places. But again, I go back to the opportunity. That's not a threat. That's an opportunity to give us a chance to say preparing for a job or whatever other things we offer in university life isn't the only reason to go to college."

"A.I. can write a book for you, but it can't read a book for you… A.I. can do things for us, but it can't be things for us." - Dr. Tom St. Antoine

While St. Antoine agreed with the positives outlined by Schiff, he pushed back on the notion education is simply about gathering and sharing information. 

"These are really good insights and very good positives, but they also just sort of rest on the assumption that education is, again, just the transfer of information from one source to another. And if education is more than that, if it's sort of the nurture of the mind, the nurture of souls in the context of a relationship between students and between teacher and student, then those strengths and those arguments might become a little bit more irrelevant."

Though St. Antoine argues A.I. will have a place in education to help with the more practical side of education, i.e. "gathering and sharing" knowledge, he asserts that the formative part of education - nurturing the mind and helping with soft skills - will not be something A.I. can replace. 

"A.I. can write a book for you, but it can't read a book for you. And so that's when education really happens, when we're exposed to exciting, challenging new ideas. We have the experience of studying them and then maybe modifying our own worldview to accommodate those new ideas. And it's that side of education that I think remains."

"A.I. can do things for us, but it can't be things for us. And if education is this process of learning to be something, this process of becoming and not just a process of doing that, I think it helps us to understand more clearly what is and what isn't being threatened by these products," St. Antoine concluded.

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Economist Schiff's stance, however, considers the money-saving and reallocation that A.I. can achieve for American communities.

"We want to relieve communities of the burden of having to pay teachers. We all want our kids educated. We don't want to pay teachers. But right now, in order to educate our kids, we have to pay the teachers. But if we can educate our kids without having to pay the teachers, that's great. We have more money left over to do other things," Schiff reasoned.

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FOX News' Taylor Penley, Nikolas Lanum, Jon Michael Raasch and Ramiro Vargas contributed to this report.