Abstract:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) are two fields of research that have been increasingly actualized with recent developments in AI technology. In November 2022 OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot with impressive capabilities of generating seemingly novel content such as poems, lesson plans, exams, and programming code for computer programs. Previous research has highlighted potential opportunities and threats with AI, both for education and society in general, such as privacy, copyright, biases, fairness, and trustworthiness. Further, AI is expected to play an increasingly important role in future work and everyday life, and with that both professionals and citizens in general will have to continuously update their knowledge in the field of AI. The aim of this study has been to develop a framework for lifelong learning courses on Artificial Intelligence.

The study was conducted as a scoping literature review to explore previous research and map findings on the topic of Artificial Intelligence for lifelong learning. Google scholar was used as the main search engine for identifying relevant papers, and the aggregation of collected databases at the University library was used for accessing papers that were not Open Access. The search combined keywords such as Artificial Intelligence, Lifelong learning, and Adult learning, with Boolean operators AND and OR. Papers published between 2019 and 2023, and relevant for answering the aim of the study, were collected in a spreadsheet document, and analyzed with thematic analysis.

Findings of the literature review identifies both important opportunities and threats of Artificial Intelligence and relate these to different professions and aspects of society. These findings provide a bedrock for development of a lifelong learning framework for courses on Artificial Intelligence, highlighting what we need to know. The conclusion of the study is that courses on Artificial Intelligence that is aimed for lifelong learning should seek a balance between understanding the technology and discussing the potential consequences. Too much focus on either could lead to fear or ignorance.

Keywords:

Artificial Intelligence, Lifelong learning, Adult learning, Higher education, Course development.