Machine behaviourism: future visions of ‘learnification’ and ‘datafication’ across humans and digital technologies

TLDR

The paper explores future visions of learning across humans and machines in a data‑analytics‑intensive near future, focusing on learnification, machine learning, and data science’s influence on education. It investigates how learnification manifests through machine training and human decision nudging via digital choice architectures, especially through behavioral‑economics‑informed educational software design. The authors analyze machine learning’s role in shaping educational activity and examine behavioral‑economics‑guided software that frames learner choices to nudge decisions toward optimal outcomes. They conclude that data science’s growing influence will produce machine behaviourism, combining radical behaviourist theories with machine learning to undermine student autonomy by steering behavior toward predefined aims.

Abstract

This paper examines visions of 'learning' across humans and machines in a near-future of intensive data analytics. Building upon the concept of 'learnification', practices of 'learning' in emerging big data-driven environments are discussed in two significant ways: the training of machines, and the nudging of human decisions through digital choice architectures. Firstly, 'machine learning' is discussed as an important example of how data-driven technologies are beginning to influence educational activity, both through sophisticated technical expertise and a grounding in behavioural psychology. Secondly, we explore how educational software design informed by behavioural economics is increasingly intended to frame learner choices to influence and 'nudge' decisions towards optimal outcomes. Through the growing influence of 'data science' on education, behaviourist psychology is increasingly and powerfully invested in future educational practices. Finally, it is argued that future education may tend toward very specific forms of behavioural governance – a 'machine behaviourism' – entailing combinations of radical behaviourist theories and machine learning systems, that appear to work against notions of student autonomy and participation, seeking to intervene in educational conduct and shaping learner behaviour towards predefined aims.