Generative AI tools, including large language models (LLMs), are transforming history education. Our rapidly changing relationship with these technologies poses both opportunities and obstacles for educators tasked with teaching history and historical thinking. Skeptics and enthusiasts differ in their predictions for the future of the AI economy, but generative AI is here now with effects both obvious and obscure. Technology companies are integrating AI functions and capabilities into a growing range of the tools and applications we already use to search the internet, communicate, design lessons, grade assignments, and organize courses.
In 2023, the AHA Council established an Ad Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence in History Education to develop guidelines for generative AI in history education at all levels. As staff liaison to this committee, I helped to develop its charge and supported its activities. Our meetings generated vigorous debate, but we quickly agreed that history education has specific needs and challenges that might not be addressed in broader institutional policies. The committee sought input from colleagues through panels and listening sessions at regional and national conferences. In May and June 2024, the committee surveyed AHA members. Of 148 respondents, 68.9 percent had redesigned courses to avoid or minimize potential misuses of generative AI—we suspect the number would be even higher now—and an overwhelming majority (92.6 percent) noted that they would appreciate guidance and sample language to use in creating AI policies for their courses. After nearly two years of discussion and investigation, this committee developed Guiding Principles for Artificial Intelligence in History Education, a document formally approved by the AHA Council in July and now available at historians.org/AI-history-education.
Students use AI tools for an array of daily tasks. Some are aware of the ethical, economic, and environmental issues associated with this technology. Even more want to learn about generative AI, how it works, and what it means for privacy, media literacy, our planet, and the future of the workforce. History educators have an opportunity to help students navigate this complex landscape. We also have a responsibility to develop clear and transparent policies that address the ways in which students might use AI for coursework.
Some technologists predict that AI will revolutionize teaching and learning. Indeed, a charter school network now promises to educate its students without any academic faculty at all. Yet education is—and must remain—a deeply human project. That a school can operate without teachers does not mean that this is a worthy endeavor or a reasonable goal. “Our goal is to foster a different trajectory,” the Guiding Principles resource asserts, “whereby generative AI is seen as a tool that supports the pursuit of knowledge, not a shortcut that replaces meaningful work.”
The committee identified 14 guiding principles that reenforce five overarching conclusions. Historical thinking, we insist, matters more than ever. It can equip students to thrive in a world awash in AI-generated content, enabling them to understand the capabilities and limitations of this technology. As educators, we can promote AI literacy, but a first step will be to adopt clear and transparent policies that address how many students already use these tools. Generative AI offers shortcuts to accelerate or refine many tasks, but it cannot diminish the value of historical expertise.
The committee’s conclusions are offered with deep respect for the full range of opinions among history educators about the future of AI. The extent of AI’s implications for history education are not yet clear, and we opted to address a discrete subset of concerns. No one-size-fits-all AI policy can meet the needs of every course, department, or institution. As such, the committee developed a sample chart outlining ways that many students may already use generative AI and offering recommendations about what could constitute acceptable use. We envision this as a starting point for conversations about policies at the course and department levels with both students and colleagues.
History invites us to consider what it means to be human. This question takes on new significance in an age of machine learning. The ball is in our court.
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