Historical-Critical Pedagogy in the era of smart machines

Abstract

“Historical-Critical Pedagogy in the era of smart machines” was the subject of the closing lecture of the 7th National Education Congress (CONAED), the 20th Symposium on Pedagogy, the 7th Symposium on Education in Rural Areas, the 4th Postgraduate Symposium on Education, and the 2nd Exhibition of Education Practices, all held at the Federal University of Catalão (UFCAT), on September 23-25, 2025. It is an academic essay targeted to respond to the following question: historical-critical pedagogy and its contributions – in the era of artificial intelligence, what to do with human scientific knowledge? From the historical-critical pedagogy’s (PHC) perspective, the response derived from the following issues: i) conceptions of the world, humankind and society; ii) education conception; iii) the educational-methodological proposal of the historical-critical methodology; and iv) the era of smart machines from the perspective of historical-critical pedagogy. To this end, the commitment of education activities with the intended project of society is resumed, based mainly on the concept of historical-dialectic materialism; then, the nature of education is understood as a non-material labor, which output cannot be put apart from the act of production, as it composes a specific investigation field (of pedagogical research). Finally, the fundamentals of Saviani’s book on “Educação e Democracia” (1983) are resumed, pointing out the tensions between the New Education Pioneers Manifesto and the historical-critical pedagogy, the latter seen as an instrument of social transformation. The conclusions include analyzing the emergence of “smart machines” or “artificial intelligences”, its meanings and implications, and supporting artificial intelligence as a human product, thus falling on human beings its control. It also considers that the blunting of intelligence poses a risk to the very human species.