On the 31st March 2026, we had the pleasure of hosting a group of young people at the Edinburgh Futures Institute for a performance reflecting critically and creatively on the ethics around the use of AI in schools. Our programme lead Judy Robertson chaired the event.
Organised and delivered by our partners at Digital Skills Education and Toonspeak – Young People’s Theatre, the event brought on stage seven personas of school students, developed and written by the organisers and a group of school-age actors, discussing AI between a lesson and another: is using AI to do your homework cheating? What in the case of kids with ASN such as dyslexia? Is it fair to upload someone else’s picture on an app to make AI-generated images?
On the one hand, the young actors were able to voice their point of view on these ethical issues or embody perspectives and emotions different from their own through this experience. The creative process allowed them to make an exercise of imagination while learning about the subject. On the other hand, the audience, which was composed of education professionals and researchers, had the chance to watch realistic representations of possible real-life conversations taking place in the schools’ corridors, and – at the end of each scenes – discuss issues and perspectives with the personas on stage, and the young actors behind them.