Conference Program

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence within educational systems is reshaping the epistemic conditions of teaching and learning. AI-based platforms increasingly mediate access to knowledge, organize information flows, and influence the forms through which learning is structured and evaluated. While these technologies are frequently framed as neutral tools capable of enhancing efficiency, personalization, and data-driven decision-making, their algorithmic logics may also reconfigure educational environments around predictability, standardization, and automated forms of cognition.

Within this evolving landscape, the risk emerges that educational processes become progressively aligned with computational models that prioritize optimization and prediction over critical judgment and dialogical reasoning. This contribution engages with the theoretical legacy of Ivan Illich and Paulo Freire to explore how convivial and non-directive pedagogical traditions can provide conceptual resources for rethinking democratic education in AI-mediated contexts.

Illich’s critique of radical monopolies offers a particularly relevant lens for examining how technological infrastructures may reach a threshold beyond which tools cease to support human autonomy and instead reorganize educational practices around systemic efficiency. At the same time, Freire’s emphasis on dialogical pedagogy and ethical self-formation highlights the importance of cultivating critical consciousness and shared responsibility in educational processes.

Building on these perspectives, the paper proposes a conceptual framework for convivial pedagogies capable of sustaining democratic agency in technologically mediated learning environments. Particular attention is devoted to educational practices that encourage critical engagement with algorithmic systems, the recognition of epistemic plurality, and the development of dialogical reasoning as a core democratic competence.

Rather than positioning artificial intelligence merely as a technological innovation, the study interprets it as a cultural and epistemic environment that challenges educational institutions to reaffirm their democratic mission. From this perspective, convivial pedagogies may contribute to transforming AI from a mechanism of epistemic normalization into a resource that supports reflective judgment, plural reasoning, and participatory forms of knowledge construction.