Relationships Between Artificial Intelligence and Emotions in Education: A Literature Review From Latin America

Introduction

The 21st century is a challenging landscape for the social sciences, due to structural inequalities in the conditions of many people living with breakneck technological advances that humanity has never seen before. From the point of view of a sociology of bodies/emotions (Scribano, 2012), this chapter is raised to identify, through a literature review, how the relationship between Artificial Intelligence (AI) in formal education and emotions is analysed. The relevance of this is based on three assumptions/claims described below: 1) Society 4.0 has modified all aspects of life, including formal education on the one hand, and ways of sensibility on the other; 2) in recent years, AI has become either a phantom or a fantasy for education, and in the Latin American context this is complex due to technological gaps in socioeconomic and gender terms; 3) in the crossover/intersection of these issues, emotions are being reconfigured by Society 4.0 and have a relevant place in discussions about teaching/learning processes, in terms of managing emotions and emotions that people (teachers and students) have experienced in school or university.

Regarding the first topic, it is assumed that from the changes caused by the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, the concept “Society 4.0” proposed by Scribano and Lisdero (2019) describes how information and communication technologies have penetrated all areas of life, rebuilding them. Communication, entertainment, work, public policies, marketing, social interactions, in other words, social and public activities down to intimate expressions or effects, breaking down barriers between public and private, work and home. This type of society has even changed the ways of capturing and interpreting the world through the amount of images, audio and video that are constantly sent through mobile devices (Scribano & Lisdero, 2019).

From the second topic, it is assumed that education has not been an exception. Academics have proposed the term “Education 4.0” to describe in a general sense the impact of ICT and changes in pedagogical methods and roles of educators/students based on a pedagogical philosophy more centred in the latter (Ramírez-Montoya, Castillo-Martínez, Sanabria, & Miranda, 2022). A more specific concept is defined as a model to learn competencies and skills adapted to the needs of Industry 4.0. Some competencies are collaboration, creativity, networking, self-management, and critical thinking (Fidalgo-Blanco, Sein-Echaluce & García-Peñalvo, 2022).

From Turing's question in the 50s about whether machines can think, expert systems can think and act like humans or artificially, so today it is understood that AI can be defined as “computing systems that can engage in human-like processes such as learning, adapting, synthesising, self-correcting, and using data for complex processing tasks” (Popenici et al., 2017, p. 2 cited in Salas Pilco & Yang, 2022). UNESCO (2019) has made 44 recommendations to include AI in educational policies, for the management of education, to accompany teachers, and to provide lifelong learning opportunities in terms of inclusion and equity. It also includes references to aspects such as the ethical and reliable use of educational data and algorithms (García Peñalvo, Llorens-Largo & Vidal 2024).