Teachers warn AI will 'turbocharge' racism in schools

By DAN BARKER FOR THE SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL Published: 00:03, 4 April 2026 | Updated: 00:03, 4 April 2026 Artificial intelligence threatens to turbocharge rising racism and misogyny in Scotland’s schools, teachers have warned. Powerful AI tools have made it easy to fabricate lifelike audio and video which appear genuine but are instead generated within seconds by computer. Now a teaching union has warned that, without action, AI tools could be used to intensify abuse fuelled by social media. Matt Wrack of NASUWT, which has its annual conference today, warned: ‘AI poses a potential threat to the safety and wellbeing of children and school staff. ‘Teachers are dealing with an upswing in racist, misogynistic and anti-immigrant rhetoric fuelled by social media, which is leading to incidents of harassment, threats and violence. ‘AI threatens to turbocharge this threat which is why a key challenge for the next Scottish Government must be to equip young people and teachers with the tools to recognise and counter online disinformation, along with greater regulation of the use of AI.’ AI systems can generate genuine-looking fake images almost instantly AI systems can generate genuine-looking fake images almost instantly. And the tools can superimpose faces over others to create so-called deepfake videos, and even invent life-like videos from scratch with a simple text prompt. Combined with technology which can replicate people’s voices, teachers fear AI systems can be used to fuel online disinformation and hate speech. Teachers have reported social media trends which have seen recordings of them manipulated by AI to show them shouting and swearing at pupils. And children have used AI to create sexual and violent images of teachers to share online. Some have been off sick since footage was shared with the likeness of teachers superimposed on pornographic films. Fake social media accounts using teachers’ names are also being set up, with a local authority calling them ‘humiliating, offensive, violent and (sometimes) sexual in nature’. The union also wants greater focus on challenging violence, abuse and disruption in schools. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.