Artificial Intelligence and Educational Research: a conversation with Ben Williamson

Abstract

Ben Williamson is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, where he serves as co-director of the Centre for Research in Digital Education, based at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. He also serves as an editor of Learning, Media and Technology, an important journal in the area of Critical Studies of Education and Technology. Ben’s research spans topics at the intersections between education and AI, big data, biology, edtech, infrastructures, and platforms. His book Big Data in Education: the digital future of learning, policy and practice (London: Sage, 2017) is also available in Spanish (Big Data en educación: el futuro digital del aprendizaje, la política y la práctica (Madrid: Morata, 2018). A full list of Ben’s output is available at his institutional profile page. He also maintains a research blog, Code Acts in Education. This conversation took place asynchronously during the months of May and July 2026, initially by e-mail, then on a shared document that was subsequently edited by all three contributors.