Artificial intelligence in educational research: beyond the ethical-liberal critique

Abstract

Academic production and manuals on the use of artificial intelligence in educational research have referenced the need to ensure the safe, responsible, and ethical use of these technologies. This is because these forms of use could solve the problem of user data capture and reduce or create mechanisms to suppress plagiarism in academia. We point to technological fetishism and the alienation of labor as fundamental aspects of the instrumental and reductive appropriation of these technologies, in such a way that, to overcome the concealment of the massive labor required to feed the algorithms, it is necessary to move beyond the appearance of the phenomenon, apprehending its multiple determinations. We propose the foundations of historical-dialectical materialism as guiding principles for educational research that aims to contribute to investigations ethically committed to overcoming structural social inequalities.