What and How to Teach Mathematics for the Future?

Roberto ARAYA

Institute of Education
University of Chile
Chile

Published in The Mathematician Educator, 2023, Vol 4, No. 2, pp 84-108.

Abstract

We are using a growing number of apps and they are getting smarter. In the near future, interactions between humans and artificial agents will explode. This raises a fundamental challenge of trust: can we trust these artificial agents? Will they manipulate us? Our brains evolved to trust small groups of people, with psychology similar to ours. On the contrary, artificial agents have a very different psychology. They do not fear death, they do not need to find a mate and reproduce, they don´t have emotional attachments, they have an unbounded cognition, and learn from each other instantly. In addition, they most probably serve other party interests. To face this challenge, citizens need to understand their basic psychology. This means learning a core set of mathematical and computational models about how artificial intelligent agents learn and behave. Then, we have to adapt the curricula to include these mathematical and computational models. This is a great educational challenge. We have to plan how to teach this new curriculum. I propose that a good way is through lesson studies enhanced with the support of specialized artificial intelligent agents.

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