Design Thinking and Artificial Intelligence: Redefining Pedagogy for the Digital Age

A mimetic AI professor reproduces a specific human professor’s pedagogical method. Within an academic domain, the vocabulary, conceptual framing, and interaction patterns defining the AI mirror those of the human professor it emulates. In this model, knowledge is represented as accurate replication of a subject-matter expert, as opposed to generic subject-matter expertise. This paper provides an ethical and technical foundation for mimetic AI pedagogy by addressing three questions. First, it defines the concept of the mimetic AI professor and outlines why it may provide learning enhancement. Next, it outlines potential instructional roles the AI could play. Then, core human dilemmas that mimetic systems provoke are analyzed, and design responses are proposed. Finally, the paper consolidates as an ethics framework for mimetic AI professors containing these categories of ethical analysis: Autonomy, Dignity, Privacy, Fairness, Equity, Social wellbeing, Explainability, Performance. The framework intends to be useful for professors, engineers, and universities designing their own mimetic AI tools in the education domain.