Chat GPT and other AI platforms have radically changed the conversation in America about the role and influence of artificial intelligence in our lives. But even before their disruptive arrival, the National Humanities Center was working with scholars and educators to address the serious ethical questions and social challenges that have now become a focus of public concern.

Questions about the impact of computing, algorithmic bias, and AI have been central to the work of NHC Fellows like Orville Vernon Burton (1994–95), Mar Hicks (2018–19), and Janny H. C. Leung (2020–21) for years. And, in April 2021, the NHC held a wide-ranging conference, “In Our Image,” exploring the critical intersection between artificial intelligence and the humanities that brought together humanists, scientists, engineers, artists, writers, and software executives to consider the ways that AI was already altering our lives.

In the wake of that gathering, the NHC initiated a multi-year initiative to create “Responsible AI” curricula across dozens of college and university campuses nationwide. It also established a series of professional development institutes for educators on “Artificial Intelligence and Digital Literacy” (AIDL) that have attracted teachers from across the country.

Both of these efforts were designed to bring humanistic perspectives into conversations about the rapid social change brought on by AI, to facilitate resource sharing and ongoing collaboration among scholars and educators, and help build networks among practitioners working in classrooms at every level across the country.

The NHC’s Responsible AI Project, launched in 2021, has supported university faculty from across the country as they've developed and implemented college-level courses that use on humanities perspectives and methodologies to help students navigate the ethical issues raised by AI. Working independently on their campuses, but collaboratively as an ongoing virtual seminar, 23 university faculty from 15 institutions have created syllabi and other resources to help colleagues across the nation who are grappling with these issues.

The AIDL cohort has similarly focused on sharing their experiences and knowledge with each other and with their wider network of colleagues across the country.

Take, for instance, AIDL Tulsa 2025 participant Jane Beckwith, who recently shared her “AI Friction Scale” via LinkedIn. Her resource integrates an original assessment tool included in the institute curriculum with input from conversations with other AIDL Tulsa attendees. Her willingness to share this resource with her wider network speaks to the collaborative ethos NHC Education strives to foster in all its work, including forays into AI.

This past summer, the NHC held AIDL institutes at the Universities of Kansas and Tulsa, bringing together educators to share stories, brainstorm ideas, and offer resources to navigate the pedagogical difficulties and opportunities posed by AI in the classroom.

“In a world pushing automation, I’ve found clarity in teaching students to slow down, go analog, and build authentic relationships,” writes high school English teacher Matt Hicks, a regular participant in the AIDL institute series. “My role,” he continues, “is not to optimize students like algorithms; instead, it’s to mentor them into critical-thinking, self-regulating, and idea-generating citizens.”

Crowd-shared resources such as Beckwith’s rubric focus on thoughtfully redesigned educational practices to encourage digital literacy not just for students, but also for teachers to collaborate on how AI should work in the classroom. For teachers, gaining digital literacy—including AI literacy—is part of the ethical obligation they have to their students for their education and overall development. 

“Understanding what we know and don’t know about AI, educators at AIDL deftly ignored the hype and fearmongering. Instead, they scrutinized AI’s efficacy and ethics while putting students first,” AIDL Kansas 2025 participant Helen Choi writes in a guest commentary for the Kansas City Star. “We left Kansas feeling less adrift, confident that students…and other institutions across North America, are in skilled hands—and that we, too, could and would do better.”

Some notable educators, however, remain skeptical about the role of AI in education, students’ lives, and privacy concerns. For example, Tressie McMillan Cottom (NHC Fellow, 2025–26) in a New York Times opinion article, argues that the implementation of AI in education “gets rid of the opportunities for serendipity,” describing AI as “midtech” and claiming that there are “very few universally positive use cases for AI in education right now.” 

While debate continues between teachers about the best practices for AI use in classrooms nationwide, we should not forget that students learning about the ethical questions surrounding AI use in education is just as important. 

When students are taught about the important questions regarding the technologies they use in the classroom—including AI—they reach enlightening, optimistic conclusions. Testimonial feedback from one of the students involved in our Responsible AI Project (RAI) reads “It is our duty to keep learning about AI, and to keep asking what we can do [to] make sure that ‘edge cases,’ people on the margins of society, are not lost in the blur.”

Even as Cottom voices her concerns for AI in education, she finds that in teaching students about the technologies they use in the classroom itself, this line of inquiry “opens up all these wonderful questions that I hope give them a lens to consider not just AI after they leave my classroom, but whatever comes after AI. Because there’ll always be a new wave of technology that promises a shinier future while hiding the risk and the trade-offs.”

When students are taught to critically engage with the tools of their education, they become not just better students but better citizens. As AI tools become more advanced and—hopefully ethically—further integrated into our classrooms, it’s our collective responsibility to ensure that our teachers and students are also not lost in the blur of technological progress. 

As institutes like AIDL launch nationwide, Sean Kamperman, co-sponsor of AIDL Kansas, reminds us that “education is a human activity” and that “teachers today need opportunities to develop a thoughtful approach to AI. More people are going to migrate toward [alternative AI-powered courses], and there will be a public debate about what’s better.”