Ethical Challenges in AI-Enabled Education: A PESTEL Analysis

With the advancement of AI-enabled education technology and the popularity of AI-enabled educational experiences, problems with the rising trend occur and recur when it comes to human ethical considerations. Poor eyesight, fatness, less communication, lack of warmth for human peers, addiction to AI tools, avoidance of thinking critically and creatively, worries about unemployment et., all these problems are threatening human welfare and hence rendering AI-based education unethical. Given the ethical worries of common AI users in education, this research finds it necessary to focus on ethical challenges and threats against the background of AI-powered education for the purpose of developing humans-friendly AI educational solutions. Therefore, researchers here try possible means to straighten out possible ethical challenges for AI-supported education. The methodology banks on literature review done under the framework of an analysis model, PESTEL, and is followed by case studies to examine its feasibility so as to propose a better-covered theoretical framework for future analysis of ethical challenges under discussion. Notably, the ethical considerations derive from virtue ethics theory that entails the flourishing of human characters, personalities and abilities. Therefore, ethical challenges drawn from the external environments are those relevant to promote individuals' well-being.