Generative AI (GenAI) is already dominating our news but will it also dominate our future society? This question requires more attention now due to the latest developments during the last months. While the invention and introduction of AI happened already in the last century during the 1950s, it was in the focus of the broad audience and news. That changed with the publication of ChatGPT by the company OpenAI on 30th of November 2022 that caused a unique interest and shortest period of time of any web service ever to gain 100 million of users. This led to an AI boom with many competing companies developing and providing AI systems. Their financial investments as well as their development cycles were increasing dramatically so that the progress and capabilities of AI systems were doubling at least every year.
But that changed during the last months in our current year 2026 now. The non-profit research organisation METR is measuring and comparing the latest developments of the so-called frontier AI models that are becoming allrounders and agents for any purpose and task. In the spring 2026, the global AI capacity has not doubled but increased at 10 times a year what makes a huge difference. If this speed continues, then next months will show a dramatic change in the capabilities and impacts of AI models, maybe even leading to the arrival of the artificial general intelligence (AGI) surpassing human capabilities soon. Taking the former evaluations for AI such as the famous Turing test, the AI models have already achieved and exceeded human-level intelligence. And the speed of this progress related AI development, implementation and application is augmenting without any precedents before.
What does it mean for our future society?
The use of GenAI and its integration everywhere are impacting all sectors and the whole society. The highest impact is the financial investment into the environment required for running AI systems such as data centres and specialised chipsets next to the consumptions of energy and water and their power plants. What is spent for all these expenditures is not available anymore for other goals and purposes. While the huge promises of the AI providers are not yet fulfilled, the majority of companies in all sectors as well as governments worldwide are searching for chances to reduce their own costs and often come to the conclusion to reduce working staff and replacing them by AI services. Thus, the workforce and employees in many sectors are under pressure including education in which teaching tasks could be transferred and assigned to AI tutors.
What does it mean for our future education?
It is evident for education experts and practitioners, that AI cannot replace teachers. Nevertheless, huge AI promises such as personalised tutoring are made also for school and higher education without any scientific evidences until now. Therefore, a latest study demands for strict and clear AI regulation in education for the benefits of the learners, namely the vulnerable minors in schools, and of the whole education system. However, many policymakers, teachers, students and their parents are lacking knowledge about GenAI and in particular requiring AI literacy to understand the AI characteristics and to making informed decisions for or against AI use. In addition, the building of digital and AI competences is needed to ethically regulate and use GenAI and to critically analyse its conditions and results. Therefore, the research project ASSAI has started to improve AI literacy.
What does ASSAI develop for responsible and ethical GenAI?
The key objective of the ASSAI project is to analyse the future use of GenAI in assessments and provide guidance. Its main focus is the human decision making on GenAI and its ethical use in assessments in education. Two main questions are central for the discussion of the relationships between AI and assessment:
- When and how to use AI in assessment?
- How does AI impact assessment and in consequence learning?
Overall, ASSAI aims to foster the organisational readiness and capacity of policymakers, leaders and professionals in decision making on, planning and regulating the future use of GenAI in assessment in education with a special focus on Higher Education (HE). Although interactions between individuals and GenAI are receiving extensive attention, ASSAI adds to this by recognizing that education policymakers and institutional leaders need to consider the systemic consequences of AI for education systems and institutions, as it transforms roles, activities, and interactions.
ASSAI focuses on assessment because (a) the EU AI Act classifies the evaluation of learning outcomes as high risk, (b) assessment is a fundamental function of education institutions’ pedagogic mission and their business models, and (c) AI impacts assessment already and is often regarded as a key problem by teachers and policy makers. ASSAI will provide guidance to all stakeholders to support them in understanding the ethical use of GenAI and thinking through the benefits, constraints, and systemic impacts of AI systems. Consequently, the first ASSAI publication, the ASSAI Ethical Foundations for Inquiry and Practice, will offer carefully selected ethical values and foundations to the policymakers, leaders and educators in HE.
What can you do to improve responsible and ethical use of GenAI?
First, you can inform yourself about GenAI, its conditions, characteristics and impact for yourself, the education system and our whole society. Below, we are providing links to explore related publications and resources. And we kindly invite you to follow and join the progress and activities of the ASSAI project.