AI schools and the new child labor Kenneth J. Saltman

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Saltman, Kenneth J., 1969- author.

Series:

Cambridge elements. Elements in the cultural politics and education

Cambridge elements. Elements in the cultural politics and education 2755-6298

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Artificial intelligence--Educational applications.

Artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence--Moral and ethical aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2026

Summary:

"This Element analyzes the expansion of artificial intelligence in schooling as the emergence of a new form of child labor. The first section theorizes digital educational privatization, demonstrating how AI platforms extract value from student activity by converting learning into data production, extending standards-and-accountability reforms, deskilling teachers, and normalizing surveillance. The second section examines the rise of AI schools, focusing on Alpha School as a case through which teacher labor is automated, corporate culture is installed as pedagogy, and schooling is reorganized around profit, techno-utopianism, and anti-democratic assumptions. The third section explores the possibilities and limits of critical AI education. While arguing that AI systems cannot themselves enact critical pedagogy, it identifies conditions under which digital technologies may be repurposed to support critical and democratic education. Drawing on activist and investigative projects such as Forensic Architecture, the book argues for teachers as cultural workers capable of developing technological practices that resist labor extraction and expand critical, public, and democratic education"-- Cambridge Core

Contents:

The new child labor : Digital educational privatization and the contest over students’ bodies and minds

The teacherless school : Alpha and the rise of the AI school

From labor extraction to critical AI education practice

Conclusion : Contesting the new child labor

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed July 21, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version Saltman, Kenneth J., 1969- AI schools and the new child labor

ISBN:

9781009853422

1009853422

OCLC:

1597322292

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license