As an educator, I feel with you this dread about AI replacing human teachers. Not just because AI might replace the likes of me and many of us will lose our jobs.

I read an EdTech article here on Medium about how automated exams and AI instructors can replace human errors committed by human teachers, and how this makes mass education more possible, standardized, and affordable. The tone of the comments on that article gave me goosebumps. Seriously, people (the commenters at least) were EXCITED about these "innovations." Would they really be want to be taught by a computer than a live human being? The emphasis on errors, unfairness (thus the need for standardization), and costs of salaries pit the human instructors as deeply flawed against the tools of tech. Is education merely a matter of acquiring knowledge and skill? How about discovery, understanding, relationships and community?

What EdTech stories like this also obscure is the fact that when AI replace teachers, there will still be human teachers. But they will be part of "premium" education packages for those who will pay. Rather than democratize education, this will just widen the gap all the more between those who get their education for free (AI-taught) and those who pay (human-taught).