Artificial Intelligence in Education - a Promise, a Threat or a Hype?

The idea of creating intelligent machines and artificial intelligence (AI) have been around for centuries, and can be traced back to at least to the 14th century. Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) is a much younger discipline, but during the last 25 years there have been achievements in a number of fields which have made impact on education. Critical voices have been raised against the over-optimism in contemporary AI research. Less have been written about the high expectation of AIED and its potential impact on education. The aim of this study was to analyse and discuss AIED from the teacher perspective. This study was carried out as a SWOT-analysis, with data gathered from a literature study. Main keywords in the literature search were: artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence in education, AIED, teacher perspective, education and teacher. Themes and patterns in the four main categories where further processed as a deductive-inductive thematic analysis. Findings indicates that there are both promises and threats for the teacher in the contemporary AIED. In several aspects the field seems to be in a state of hype but as other hype areas there is a potential for maturing and with concrete applications in daily teaching and learning activities. Recommendations is to learn from traditional AI and to open up for an informative and nuanced discussion concerning the role of AI in education. Otherwise there is a risk for artificial education instead of artificial intelligence in education.