Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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These questions are to help me. In the context of education, and this goes back to what Deputy Murphy said about being the consumer, I am concerned about who becomes the consumer and who controls the platform, narrative, information and knowledge. For me, it is not only about ensuring that the working class and more vulnerable groups have access to AI at an educational level, but that we go back a few steps and ensure that those groups are developing AI as well. That is what some of my questions are getting at. I am trying to understand how we do that and how we get there. Google does not even understand my dialect. You would want to see what it repeats back to me. Even being able to engage with certain aspects of machine learning is a concern of mine.

When I was in school, we used free software. Other schools with bigger budgets were able to buy the software the universities were using if they were doing technical drawing or a certain engineering model. This meant they had a broader understanding and capability that was in line with, for example, what Trinity College was using in its engineering school. I am interested in the witnesses’ opinions when it comes to the role of the State, or the Department of education specifically, in ensuring there is a general way of engaging with AI for every school, whether it is fee-paying, private or otherwise, and that there is a responsibility to ensure that access is equal across the board in order that we do not have badly resourced schools that are using only free software that is not of the standard to what other schools are using.