Acknowledgments

The writing for this book began in 2017, and the research that informed it started even earlier. Much has changed in the fast-moving field of education technology during this time. Some of our early speculations about the near future of artificial intelligence in education policy and governance are now realities; in other cases, the field has developed in unexpected ways. The same will prove true for the ideas that finally made it into this book. We have many people to thank for their contributions to our research and writing over this long journey.

Our research was funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). We would like to thank our co-investigators on the Data Infrastructures, Mobility and Network Governance in Education project, funded by the ARC Discovery Project scheme (DP RG151529). Research for some of this book was funded by the Canadian SSHRC Insight Grant Scheme (#435-2018-0102), for the project titled The Education of, and by, Machines: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Education Policy. Other parts of the research were supported by the ARC Future Fellowship scheme (FT180100280), for the project titled Education Policy, Mobility, and Artificial Intelligence.

Thank you to all of our research participants in these projects from schools, companies, government departments, and research institutions, who kindly agreed to be interviewed about their fields, professions, and industries. Your insights into datafication, digitalization, and artificial intelligence have been invaluable.

Our thanks to the many colleagues and friends who have provided space and time to discuss the ideas that made it, and sometimes did not make it, into this book: Andrew Murphie, Liz de Freitas, Carlo Perrotta, Ezekiel Dixon Román, Ben Williamson, Kevin Witzenberger, Eva Bendix Petersen, David Gillborn, Simon Taylor, Colin Evers, Matthew Clarke, David Cole, Greg Thompson, Emile Bojesen, Petra Mikulan, Bob Lingard, Marcelina Piotrowski, Duncan “Marv” McDuie-Ra, Colin Symes, and Adam Rudder.

Our thanks also to audiences in various places where we have rehearsed the ideas that we develop in this book: the Australian Association for Research in Education annual conference; the American Educational Research Association annual conference; the European Conference on Educational Research; the Society of the Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture annual meeting; Birmingham Centre for Research in Race and Education; Monash University Digital Education Research Group; the Kings College Centre for Public Policy Research seminar series; the Manifold Laboratory for Biosocial, Eco-Sensory, and Digital Studies of Learning and Behaviour at Manchester Metropolitan University; and the New Materialist Informatics Conference. We appreciate the generosity people have shown in providing comments on our work and opening new directions for investigation with their questions.

For fact-checking and updates on contemporary machine learning, we thank the reading group at the Gradient Institute, especially Tiberio Caetano, Finn Lattimore, and Dan Steinberg.

For additional electronica recommendations during the revisions stage, we thank @richardson_m_a, @KEvinWtz, @tonycarusi, and @martinxholt. And the Spotify algorithm.

Our stellar editor, Pieter Martin, has been remarkably patient as this book has taken its shape over the past four years. We cannot thank Pieter enough for his editorial counsel, which has made the book significantly better.

Our thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers of our initial book proposal, and to the reviewer of the full manuscript. We hope the latter’s insights have substantially improved the final publication.

As always, the improvements to this book are thanks to the contributions of those above and the shortcomings ours alone.

We would like to dedicate this book to our families: Kim, Kobi, Finn, Aila, Jules, Amy, and Owen.