On Virtue Epistemology and Artificial Intelligence in Education: Could AI be the 21st Century Transformation Machine of Nozick?

This paper aims to address the question of why no person should choose to be plugged into Nozick’s experience machine to be instantly virtuous while touching on why the deceptive tendencies of AI tools in education looks inconsistent with education’s epistemic aims. At the outset, I provide an account of virtue and what it means to acquire it. Following this, I discuss the concept of education from the perspective of virtue epistemology and its implications. In effect, I would argue that no rightly motivated virtuous agent would choose to attach oneself to a machine that will alter one’s character and implant a desirable trait in the flick of a switch. Similarly, no person aware of the virtue epistemic aims of education will depend on the deceptive use of AI to achieve success in education. Essentially, human intuition disposes one to reject any action involving deception and a comprehensive understanding of virtue and education contradicts acceding to a machine-like transformation procedure. This paper tackles the idea that although the ultimate telos of acquiring virtue (and education, by inference) is to possess one successfully, attaining such an excellent state must also be consistent with significant virtue-epistemic motivations.