Sadly, much of modern American education has become little more than coaxing students to accumulate as much information as possible and recall it on command. And if that is all education is, it is no wonder that AI seems like such a threat. These systems have access to unimaginable amounts of information and have the ability to processes them at incomprehensible speeds.
However, AI and other advances in technology need not be a threat to educators as long as they understand that knowledge is more than information accumulation.
Current conversations about AI often make matters worse. It’s common to see knowledge and information used synonymously. For example, when discussing the impact of AI on education, Geoffery Cox suggests that soon “building a personal store of knowledge [will be] largely unnecessary because all knowledge [will be] available on demand…. (emphasis added)”[1] He suggests that our “epistemic environment” will soon be “saturated with information” such that “knowing [will be] like breathing” (emphasis added). Cox discusses the impact AI is having on students, yet he deliberately remains neutral regarding important epistemic questions, crucially what knowledge even is.
The good news is that even the most basic philosophical understanding of knowledge shows that conflating it with accumulated information is unhelpful and ultimately indefensible.
Knowledge and Information
Knowledge and information are related to each other, but their distinction is crucial for their relationship.
The first thing to note is that knowledge is subject-oriented while information is object-oriented. Luciano Floridi defines information as “well-formed, meaningful, and veridical data.”[2] It may be presented as syntactic or semantic facts. Regardless, a necessary property of information is that it will be objectively true or false. Accordingly, information exists independent of observation. By contrast, as Jenifer Nagle argues, knowledge requires a knower. Its existence assumes a knowing subject. In other words, knowledge connects a person to information.[3]
Second, the relationship between knowledge and information is significant. Knowledge establishes a network of coherent relations, connecting information in a meaningful way.[4] In other words, knowledge also connects bits of information to each other.
Knowledge connects a person to information and connects bits of information to each other.
Knowledge and Information in Education
This distinction and relation between knowledge and information is particularly important for education. Too often, mere accumulation of information is mistaken for growth in knowledge. However, knowledge is what connects information to the knower and establishes coherence among a body of information. “Shatter that,” Floridi explains, “and you are left with a pile of truths or a random list of bits of information that cannot help to make sense of the reality they seek to address.”[5] Unfortunately, ‘piles of truths and random bits of information’ is too often a fair description of students’ experiences in school.
Unfortunately, ‘piles of truths and random bits of information’ is too often a fair description of students’ experiences in school.
So, what is knowledge? Philosophers have thought and debated about the nature of knowledge for thousands of years. To this day, there many fine-grained disagreements. But consensus is that knowledge is at minimum some combination of “justified true belief.”
As an educator, this is a concept of knowledge I can get behind. My work as a teacher is to brings students into interaction with truth, such that they are justified in the beliefs that they form. Doing so, I am facilitating, not only their academic success, but also their flourishing as people.
Human Flourishing and Information Overload
I submit that the greatest problem here is the assumption that an accumulation of, or at least access to, vast amounts of information enables people to flourish. This is entirely unfounded. If anything, we have seen the detriment of information overload. In the information age, “We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.”[6]
Information overload occurs when occurs when the amount of input exceeds processing capacity and decreases decision making ability. This is something that has become a common experience—being so flooded with information that we can’t function properly. Interestingly, this is a typical explanation given for information overload of computer systems.
I wonder if this is not the underlying problem: Conflating knowledge with information accumulation reduces people to computers.
So, here is my argument:
Knowledge is necessary for our flourishing, making education a common good.
Knowledge is not the same as mere access to information.
Mere access to information does not necessarily lead to our flourishing. In fact, too much information leads to information overload.
Therefore, for students to flourish, knowledge must not be conflated with information accumulation.
Counterargument: Extended Cognition
So what is the difference between knowledge and accumulated information? After all, how different is it really to remember information internally and to accessing information externally. In other words, there may be a difference between knowledge and information, there is no significant difference between knowing and accessing information.
Andy Clark and David Chalmers propose that cognitive processes can extend beyond a person’s mind to include external devices and environments.[7] This idea is sometimes call extended cognition (EC). In this view, accessing information via technology is functionally identical to internal cognitive processes. For instance, when a student uses a search engine to find information, this act can be seen as an extension of their cognitive process, effectively making the technology a part of their mind's toolkit. The external storage and retrieval of information, therefore, become an integrated aspect of knowing.
This is an interesting concept especially in light of recent developments. Teachers use to admonish students that they must learn math because they wouldn’t have calculators everywhere they go. Now, anyone with a smartphone takes the entire internet with them everywhere they go. As augmented reality (AR) and brain-computer interface (BCI) systems (e.g., Neuralink) continue to develop, access to world-wide information will become immediate and effortless.
Students will soon be asking, why learn anything when you have access to everything?
We typically assume that learning and knowing necessitates internalizing information. EC challenges this notion. Instead, the concept of knowing is expanded to the ability to access and use external information sources effectively. The distinction between someone’s “internal” memory and the “external” information is blurred.
In an educational context, this suggests that the skill of efficiently and critically interacting with information technology becomes just as important as the internal retention of knowledge. A major implication of EC is that, while there might be a conceptual difference between information and knowledge, in a technologically integrated world the act of knowing may not significantly differ from the act of accessing information.
Response
I would argue against the implications of EC, especially regarding education, in two ways.
First, there is more to knowledge than the storage and access of information. Epistemologist have explored various kinds of knowledge, each with their own characteristics. Briefly, there are major differences between knowing that (propositional knowledge), knowing how (practical knowledge), and knowing what it’s like (acquaintance knowledge). The act of knowing often involves experience, internalization, comprehension, and synthesis of information. This leads to formation of beliefs and judgments.
EC seems to confuse what assists us in knowing things and the knowledge itself. This is known as the “causal-constitution fallacy.” Fred Adams and Ken Aizawa argue that the fallacy lies in thinking that just because an object or process is frequently used and trusted by someone, it becomes a part of their cognitive system. For instance, relying heavily on a pocket notebook doesn't mean these objects become part of one's memory. Adams and Aizawa compare the process to neurons connected to muscles. The release of neurotransmitters are involved in muscle movement but aren't part of the muscles themselves.[8]
External tools certainly augment our capacity to know, but they are essentially distinct from the knowledge itself.
The process of engaging with information, critically evaluating it, and integrating it into one's understanding is fundamental to the educational process. Most importantly for my argument, it is an internal process which cannot be replaced by external tools. A student who can quickly find information online may not necessarily understand or be able to apply that information in a meaningful way, any more than a student who temporarily “memorizes” information to quickly pass a test.
Second, as I will argue later, the primary goal of education should extend beyond the mere retention of or access to information. Education aims to form students into well-rounded individuals, equipped not just with information, but with the capacity for critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and personal development. The goal is to cultivate individuals who can contribute positively to society, engage in lifelong learning, and develop a virtuous character. A holistic approach to education cannot be outsourced to technologies, despite being facilitated by them. reduces learning to an exercise in information management rather than a transformative process that shapes the whole person.
Educators and educational institutions that properly understand the relation and distinction between knowledge and information need not fear AI (or even BCI) systems. However, we might fear what people assume about these technologies.
AI may process exponentially more information at exponentially faster rates. But information must not be confused with knowledge, and information processing must not to be confused with knowing.
[1] G.M. Cox, “Artificial Intelligence and the Aims of Education: Makers, Managers, or Inforgs?”, Studies in Philosophy and Education (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-023-09907-2
[2] Floridi, Information: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 50.
[3] Jennifer Nagel, Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014) 2.
[4] Floridi, 51.
[5] Floridi, 51.
[6] E.O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Random House, 1998), 294.
[7] Andy Clark and David Chalmers, “The Extended Mind,” in Analysis Jan.1998, Vol. 58, No. 1, 7-19.
[8] Frederick R. Adams and Kenneth Aizawa, “Defending the Bounds of Cognition,” in Richard Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010).