What is the future of knowledge?

Headlines about ChatGPT and its potentially seismic impacts for education are prompting us to ask, ‘What is the Future of Knowledge, post-pandemic and in light of ChatGTP?’

Right now, the media’s interest in ChatGPT seems focused on whether the new technology will tempt some students into cheating in exams. But we think this misses a trick. When educationalists discuss what skills, insights and attitudes will help our students to thrive in an AI-fuelled world, we have more on our minds than whether or not students use their phones when they write assignments – although of course, that’s important to consider too.

Artificial intelligence is affecting what knowledge is, how knowledge is created and what it means to be a biologist, philosopher, journalist, lawyer, theologian, artist or [fill in your own profession here]. At the Epistemic Insight Future of Knowledge Exhibition held recently in London, experts in Oceanography, Astronomy and Artificial intelligence (AI) came together to discuss what knowledge will look like in future and new ways that their disciplines can work together. One of the Big Questions they raised is – is there something uniquely human about the ways we engage with images of nature? This matters in the real-world of each of their fields because robots working remotely are being used to collect and filter images of places where it’s too expensive or risky for humans to go. So it’s a real puzzle – for marine scientists investigating the depths of the ocean – and stargazers looking at the night sky. To find out more please visit www.futureofknowledge.com.

The importance of conversations about what knowledge is and how we can and should work with knowledge can be seen in the increasing use of words like epistemic knowledge (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), epistemic agents (Universities Council for the Education of Teachers) and epistemic insight (Epistemic Insight initiative).

These and related issues are hot topics of debate among members of the BERG (the Biology Education Research Group) who are exploring what Artificial Intelligence means for the future of biology and for the future of biology education. The days when students’ learning happened only on a physical campus with separate zones and buildings for the sciences and other disciplines seem to be fading into history. So will knowledge continue to be organised in disciplines as we look into the future? And are there ways to use digital spaces to innovate new multidisciplinary methods and create cross-disciplinary teams – without losing some of the integrity of how disciplines work?

A focus on developing students’ epistemic insight, appreciation of Big Questions and multidisciplinary ways of working to help students thrive in a rapidly changing world finds resonance in the Royal Society of Biology’s Evolving 5-19 Biology: recommendation and framework for 5-19 biology curricula (2021). It highlights the connectedness of knowledge through three dimensions covering big questions in biology – practices of biology, concepts of biology and applications of biology considering the preferred questions and methods of biology and the relationships between biology and other disciplines (www.rsb.org.uk/curriculum).

All in all, it’s a timely moment for the Journal of Biology Education to be encouraging conversations about the Future of Knowledge and we’re grateful for the opportunity to share our reflections too!