During the fall of 2021, I was fortunate enough to teach three courses at Rosemont College in Montréal. Rosemont College is part of the CÉGEP network which is unique to Québec’s school system. There, I participated in a pilot project to use deliberation to introduce students to ethical challenges surrounding potential applications of Artificial Intelligence Systems (AIS). This project was developed conjointly by Rosemont College and the University of Montréal (details and the toolkit they developed are accessible here for free). This activity proved to be immensely popular among the students and is, I believe, particularly efficient to introduce students to philosophical argumentation and reflection in a non-antagonistic situation.
CÉGEPs (for Collèges d’Enseignement Général et Professionnel) occupy a unique position in Québec’s school system. CÉGEPs are teaching institutions in between high schools and universities. As such, they are frequented by students from different walks of life, who all have different experiences and objectives for their future. Attending a CÉGEP is necessary for different technical and vocational degrees and to attend a university in Québec. Most interestingly, three philosophy courses are included in the core curriculum all students must complete to obtain a degree: a general introduction to philosophy and rationality, an introduction to philosophical anthropology, and a general introduction to ethics and political philosophy.
As such, CÉGEPs represent prime locations to deploy deliberative discussions. When people deliberate, ideally, they aim to reach a consensual decision based on a reasoned discussion. The group should not only take an enlightened decision – that is, one they could justify to others – but also generally agree on the reasons why they all adopt it. The diverse student body all coming together in these introductory classes thus promised to be very interesting: the hope was that the students would nourish the group discussion based on their different life experiences, sensibilities and ambitions. Moreover, deliberation is particularly interesting, I believe, in introductory philosophy classes because it allows students to move beyond the antagonistic approach often associated with philosophy. Though there is, of course, many things to be said in defence of debates and the capacity to argue with someone who disagrees with you, deliberation puts forth another way to approach philosophical discussion. The point here is less to debate and argue with an opponent, but to work in concert to reach a shared decision that all can, in a sense, recognize as theirs. It pushes the students to consider the arguments the other presents seriously and to interact constructively.
The pilot project presented the students with a potential application of AIS which may arise in the future. From there, the students were divided into small groups of 5 to 8 and had first to identify what, for them, were the three main ethical issues associated with the case they were presented with and, second, to identify concrete solutions to address these issues. For instance, in the classes I taught, students were presented with a scenario where a young, overworked nurse, Adeline, downloads an application that gathers her data to build her perfect, virtual, soulmate. The application eventually constructs the perfect virtual companion for her and, after a few weeks, Adeline swears solely by her virtual partner. This case pushed students to reflect on the value of human relationships and how AIS can affect them, on the ethical issues surrounding the collection and storage of (very) personal data, and on whether relationships between humans and bots could have the same value as relationships between humans. In another class, the professor presented a case where a College implements an AIS to collect data on its students to identify and provide targeted support to students more at risk of dropping out (other potential scenarios are available here). As such, this pilot project aims to present students with highly contemporary cases that are of direct interest to them and pushes them to work collectively to reason together and agree on the most pressing ethical issues attached to these cases and to find ways to tackle these problems. Of course, students are not left to their own devices. For each group, a host, who themselves already participated in a deliberative discussion, accompanies and guides the group in their discussion.
I must say that I had some apprehensions vis-à-vis this exercise. My classes were fortunately reasonably participative, but nothing guarantees, in advance, that all the groups would function adequately or interact constructively with one another. Moreover, I was unsure about whether the 3-hour long exercise would prove to be full of awkward silences and of hosts desperately trying to push students to defend their positions and reflect on their reasons for defending their points of view instead of simply stating what their positions were. Fortunately, all these apprehensions proved to be groundless. In all my groups, from the more novice to the more advanced, the students proved reasonably eager to discuss with one another, responded positively to invitations to expand on their arguments, and, in all classes, every group managed to arrive at (relatively) consensual conclusions.
As a host, this experience highlighted the different ways in which teaching is much more than simply explaining philosophical theories to students. This exercise has taught me how students can develop philosophical, reasoned arguments and interactions from relatively simple and open-ended scenarios. The host is mainly there to moderate discussion, keep time, and reformulate interventions when necessary to keep the discussion going, but the substantial interventions are completely dependent on what the students bring to the table. This is, personally, what I found most fascinating about this exercise: though some patterns emerge in the issues identified and in the potential solutions, no two groups were identical. Observing these deliberations was a delight to see how students can truly care about philosophical debates and contemporary ethical challenges.
Of course, some groups functioned better than others. After the exercise, all students were asked to write down – anonymously – one thing they liked about the exercise and one thing which could be improved. Most students underlined that they liked the opportunity to be involved directly in an open-ended small-group discussion. Some noted that they liked being challenged by others and seeing how different groups reached different conclusions. Others also highlighted how it was pleasant to interact directly with other students and that this exercise allowed them to forge new relations between them. On the things to improve, students mentioned that this exercise can become particularly loud and that it was difficult at times to hear what others were saying since there was an incessant buzzing sound coming from surrounding groups. Others mentioned that in large groups (around 8 students or more) it was difficult to follow the discussion and would have preferred smaller groups around 4 or 5 persons. Finally, a recurring comment is that some hosts did not intervene enough to ensure that all those who wanted to participate had the opportunity to do so. A few comments did highlight that certain students tended to dominate the discussion.
Yet, all these problems prove to be relatively minor, easily resolvable issues. In future classes, I know I will try to divide the class into smaller subgroups and give this exercise over two periods to diminish the number of students present to ensure that the volume of conversation remains at an acceptable level. Likewise, it would be worth mentioning expressly to all the hosts to be careful to ensure that everyone gets a turn to speak and to be more attentive to find ways to include those who are less likely to participate without being prompted to do so. Nonetheless, this experience and pilot project were welcomed by the students and showed me a side of my students I rarely get to see. It allowed us to truly build something as a group and proved to be a rather unique experience I look forward to attempting again.
Hugo Cossette-Lefebvre
Hugo Cossette-Lefebvre is a Ph.D. candidate at McGill University. His central interests are in political philosophy, philosophy of law, and global ethics. He also teaches philosophy at Rosemont College.
