As the practical value and ethics of using generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education receive focused attention, open educational resources (OER) provide a mechanism toward an AI future that is more bright and hopeful than the current trajectory. The ecological argument against AI is strong, as training and running complex models requires high levels of resource consumption. Some have argued that the ecological impact of AI alone signifies a social justice, and even existential, threat to humanity by drastically and disproportionately depleting access to water and power and leading to social decision-making that values resources over people . However, such concerns may lose some of their urgency if we shift to more judicious use of these tools (cf., “applied AI” vs. “innovative AI”, ). In this paper, we will discuss what we mean by “Judicious AI Use,” ground our discussion in our own experiences and aspirations in developing and growing an open publishing platform (EdTech Books) and explore how open education can serve as a space for more sustainable and equitable uses of AI to achieve socially valuable goals.

Keywords

open publishing · judicious AI · open text · artificial intelligence · sustainability