Lost in AI

Who should have a say in shaping the future of AI in education? In this episode of LOST IN AI, we explore the ETH-TECH Educathons, participatory spaces bringing together different stakeholders to reflect on the ethical challenges of AI. Through the perspectives of future teachers and civil society organisations, we discuss concerns about bias, inequality and over-reliance on technology, as well as the importance of critical thinking and human agency. The findings highlight a shared message: AI may transform education, but people must retain the ability to understand, question and make informed decisions about its use. Because the future of education is not programmed – it is built together.
Contributors: Judith Jacovkis Halperin, Mercedes Pilar Blanco Navarro, Carles Lindín Soriano and Pablo José Rivera Vargas  

Produced within the ETH-TECH Erasmus+ project. Episode developed by the University of Barcelona team (UB) and produced by the University of Padova (UNIPD).

What happens when students stop thinking about AI simply as learners and begin to encounter it as future teachers? In this episode, we discuss an ETH-TECH learning experience with pre-service primary teachers designed around ethical dilemmas, direct encounters with generative AI, external sources, policy frameworks and reflective activities. We explore an intriguing shift from relatively permissive attitudes as students toward greater concern for responsibility, safety and pupils’ cognitive autonomy as future professionals. But we also examine what remained largely outside their ethical field of vision: institutions, infrastructures, power and the structural conditions through which AI enters education. A conversation between prof. Juliana Elisa Raffaghelli and prof. Ottavia Trevisan about ethical AI education as a process of becoming a teacher, rather than simply learning how to use a technology.


Produced within the ETH-TECH Erasmus+ project. Episode developed and produced by the University of Padova (UNIPD).

In this podcast episode, ETH-TECH team members Pablo Rivera, Mercedes Blanco, Carles Lindín, and Alejo González from the University of Barcelona introduce “educathons” – a collaborative pedagogical format that sits between a hackathon and a space for ethical reflection. Together, they explore how this approach connects ethical reflection on artificial intelligence with pedagogical action, engaging university students, NGOs, and industry actors in co-creating concrete proposals to improve the ethical training of future educators.


Produced within the ETH-TECH Erasmus+ project. Episode developed by the University of Barcelona team (UB) and produced by the University of Padova (UNIPD).

In this episode, Bogdan Glăvan from Babeș-Bolyai University explore what happens when educators – not just students – use generative AI to shape teaching itself. Through a psychology course example involving a simulated AI patient, the episode examines three key ethical questions drawn from the ETH-TECH Framework: who remains in charge, what students need to understand about the system, and whose experience the system might misrepresent or leave out. Drawing on a distinction introduced by guest speaker Federico Zilio at the ETH-TECH kick-off meeting, the episode reflects on whether generative AI is best understood as a tool, an assistant, or something in between – and why that distinction matters for human agency, transparency, and fairness in education.

References

• European Commission. (2022). Ethical guidelines on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and data in teaching and learning for educators. Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2766/153756
• ETH-TECH Consortium. (n.d.). Ethics of AI and data in education: The situated ETH-TECH perspective: A framework for practice. Project Deliverable, Work Package II.
• ETH-TECH Consortium. (n.d.). OER 3: Storyboarding: Imagining fair and non-discriminatory educational technology and AI usage. https://eth-tech.eu/oer-storyboarding/
• García-Torres, D., Fernández, C., Mira, J. J., Morales, A., & Vicente, M. A. (2025). Using AI-based virtual simulated patients for training in psychopathological interviewing: Cross-sectional observational study. JMIR Medical Education, 11, e78857. https://doi.org/10.2196/78857
• Sikström, S., Boehme, R. A., Mirström, M., Agbotsoka, T., Győri, G., Lasota, M., Tabesh, M., Stille, L., & Garcia, D. (2025). Generative AI-assisted clinical interviewing of mental health. Scientific Reports, 15, 37737. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-13429-x
• Zilio, F. (2025, January 22-24). Applied ethics: From theory to technology [Guest presentation]. ETH-TECH Kick-off Meeting.

Produced within the ETH-TECH Erasmus+ project. Episode developed by the Babeș-Bolyai University team (BBU) and produced by the University of Padova (UNIPD).

In this podcast episode, we share insights to the backstage of the ETH-TECH OER production in 2025/2026. Join ETH-TECH team member Sigrid Hartong and three students (Saskia, Celina, Svea) from Helmut-Schmidt-University Hamburg who collectively reflect on their journey towards imagining, crafting and testing the OERs in the context of a university seminar, as well as in the European network of the ETH-TECH partnership.


Produced within the ETH-TECH Erasmus+ project. Episode developed by the Helmut Schmidt University team (HSU) and produced by the University of Padova (UNIPD).

While educators are still questioning how and if to use AI in the classroom, and even whether it can be done ethically, one thing is certain: AI is already a part of students’ lives. When conducting Awareness Raising Sessions with students from Babeș-Bolyai University in May 2025, this became abundantly clear. Not only are students using AI in their professional and academic lives, but they also rely on it in their personal lives. This episode explores AI’s potential impact on students’ lives, linking their reflections with recent research.

References

• Farzan, M., Ebrahimi, H., Pourali, M., & Sabeti, F. (2025). Artificial intelligence-powered cognitive behavioral therapy chatbots: A systematic review. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry, 20(1), 102. https://doi.org/10.18502/ijps.v20i1.17395
• Gerlich, M. (2025). AI tools in society: Impacts on cognitive offloading and the future of critical thinking. Societies, 15(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15010006
• Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614568352
• OpenAI. (2025, February 10). Expanding on sycophancy. https://openai.com/index/expanding-on-sycophancy/
• Shen, J. H., & Tamkin, A. (2026). How AI impacts skill formation. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.20245
• Surkalim, D. L., Luo, M., Eres, R., Gebel, K., van Buskirk, J., Bauman, A., & Ding, D. (2022). The prevalence of loneliness across 113 countries: Systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ, 376, e067061. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-067068

Produced within the ETH-TECH Erasmus+ project. Episode developed by the Babeș-Bolyai University team (BBU) and produced by the University of Padova (UNIPD).

This episode is based on the second partners’ meeting in Cluj-Napoca, marking a pivotal midpoint in the project’s journey. At this stage, partners reflect on progress to date and consider upcoming challenges and opportunities, combining critical reflection with a forward-looking perspective that offers a rich snapshot of the project in motion.
Framed by an introduction and conclusion from Bogdan Glăvan (BBU Team), the episode weaves together a series of interviews with key project partners. Prof. Juliana E. Raffaghelli (University of Padua, Italy) opens the discussion by addressing the tension between rapid technological advancement and society’s capacity to adapt, thereby setting the project’s broader goals. Prof. Oana Negru-Subțirică (Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania) explores the impact of AI on educators, raising critical ethical questions around issues such as data ownership. Building on this, Prof. Pablo Rivera-Vargas (University of Barcelona, Spain) highlights the importance of reflection and considers how the project is reshaping academic practices. Finally, Prof. Sigrid Hartong (Helmut Schmidt University, Germany) turns to the practical dimension, focusing on the development of Open Educational Resources (OERs) and looking ahead to the next phase of the project, culminating in the upcoming meeting in Hamburg.


Produced within the ETH-TECH Erasmus+ project. Episode developed by the Babeș-Bolyai University team (BBU) and produced by the University of Padova (UNIPD).

In this episode, the focus turns to the Open Educational Resources (OERs), under development within the ETH-TECH project. Through the idea of critical co-design, these materials fully embrace an approach to ethics as a collective practice: a process of exploring dilemmas, acknowledging uncertainty, and reflecting together on how technologies shape teaching and learning. In this episode, MED team (Gabriele Biagini), in charge of the project's dissemination and the external testing of the OER, conducted an interview with the HSU team (Sigrid Hartong and Ina Sander), the OER leaders. The episode explores how the OERs were developed through collaboration across four European contexts (UNIPD, Italy; BBU, Rumania; UB, Spain and HSU, Germany), involving students, educators, and researchers in an iterative process of experimentation and feedback. The result is a set of flexible resources designed to open spaces for dialogue, critical reflection, and shared responsibility in times of AI.



Produced within the ETH-TECH Erasmus+ project. Episode developed by the Media Education team (MED) and produced by the University of Padova (UNIPD).

Beyond official frameworks and formal research outputs, this episode turns to the voices that engage with ETH-TECH from its margins. These are not core designers or lead researchers, but educators, researchers, and practitioners who have taken ETH-TECH into their own contexts, classrooms, and lines of inquiry. Their perspectives matter precisely because they emerge from use, tension, and reinterpretation. In this episode, ethics is not treated as a checklist or a solution, but as a shared, unfinished question that unfolds where technology meets education, power, and responsibility.

Guest speakers: Mariana Ferrarelli, Sergio Carvajal‑Leoni, Stephanie Martinic Caneo.

Produced within the ETH-TECH Erasmus+ project. Episode developed and produced by the University of Padova (UNIPD).

The publication of DigComp 3.0, the European Digital Competence Framework, offers a timely occasion to pause and reflect. In this episode, the conversation starts from the release of DigComp 3.0, the European Digital Competence Framework, and uses it as an entry point to reflect more broadly on how ethics, AI, and data are currently framed within European education policy.

References:

• ETH-TECH project (Anchoring Ethical Technology – AI and data in education)
• Raffaghelli & Negru-Subtirica, 2025
• Negru-Subtirica, Raffaghelli & Marinica, 2025
• For the critical tradition in educational technology: Collective CSET - https://digitalchild.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/What-hope-is-there-for-CSET-report.pdf
• https://webcast.ec.europa.eu/presenting-the-european-digital-competence-framework-digcomp-30-25-12-12

Produced within the ETH-TECH Erasmus+ project. Episode developed and produced by the University of Padova (UNIPD).