What’S NEW AND WHAT’S Next FOR TOK
in the age of AI?

Laptops and phones are astonishingly powerful human enhancements. If we know where to look and what to ask; if we can resist monetized, attention sucking clickbait and learn to use our wits to identify fakery—we can benefit from having instant, online access to the entire edifice of digitized human knowledge!

There’s more. Even a chatty, nonchalant question placed in the Google search engine will prompt AI mode. And, of course, we can be assisted in multiple ways by other Large Language Models like ChatGPT5 and DeepSeek, that now easily pass the Turing Test. University professors decry that they can no longer distinguish student essays enhanced by AI. These are exponentially-evolving, revolutionary, mind-boggling developments!

• Has AI enhanced or exacerbated our epistemic quest?

• What are the implications for authorship and academic honesty now that academic writing can be radically enhanced by AI?

• What are “hallucinations” in the AI context?

• What can we say about choice of language here? Is “hallucination” an optimistic, quickly-dismissive, witty reference to anthropomorphism; or grim foreboding?

Innovative technology has always extended human possibility, but there are downsides. We must weigh unintended negative, even existential consequences, against previously unimaginable, potential gains. Choose your archetype—Promethean dilemma? The Midas touch? Pandora’s box? Frankenstein’s monster? These are drivers for many of the class activities offered in the Knowledge and Technology Optional Theme.

AI-RELATED CLASS ACTIVITIES MENU

Artificial Intelligence
Post-truth
You are the product
AI and academic integrity
Techno-morality
AI Art

INTERLUDE—
EDUCATIONAL PLOT TWIST

A non-negotiable plot twist for education as whole is looming. As teachers strive to deliver academic rigor across the various subject domains, we must embed AI and tech literacy, whilst—and this is key—retaining the human touch!

The IBO, and school systems all over the planet, are busy establishing coherent positions regarding age-appropriate use of AI that will augment skills in things like robotics, coding, algorithmic logic, networks, and IoT (Internet of Things). Digital citizenship must entail a critical approach to the chronic excess of information in a buzzing, post-truth world. Such a vision would also encompass cyber wellness and maintaining an ethical orientation when actually using information technology.

If we get this right; we will preserve problem-solving, meta-thinking, error detection, and the kind of meaningful, hands-on, real-world understandings that—at least so far—no external digital tool can fully replicate.

Long live the human touch!

CONCLUSION—
THE RAREST OF TREATS!

TOK can get a lot done in its designated 100 hours. Think of coming to TOK class as a rare treat. It is an opportunity to facilitate a cohort of energetic high schoolers to bond together and reflect, individually and collectively, on “the nature of knowledge, and on how we know what we claim to know.” It can be discombobulating for them at first, but what other class for 17-year-olds is “composed almost entirely of questions?”

In this digital, machine learning, anthropic era there is an imperative to increase the critical mass of informed, globally-minded, young adult citizens who have the meta-cognitive tools to navigate complexity, noise and obfuscation. We want students to learn to how to think for themselves, not confuse multiple perspective with outright relativism, and to care—really care—about the pursuit of Truth.