(Re)discovering the Human in Algorithmic-Informed Open, Distance and Digital Education

This chapter examines how the growing integration of artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making reshapes open, distance and digital education (ODDE) and raises critical questions about the place of the human within increasingly automated educational systems. Historically grounded in a humanitarian mission to expand educational access, ODDE has long been deeply entangled with technological infrastructures that both enable education at scale and risk depersonalising teaching and learning. Situating contemporary developments in artificial intelligence within this longer trajectory, the chapter critically interrogates claims that AI-driven systems inevitably enhance efficiency, learning, and educational quality. Drawing on scholarship across education, philosophy, and critical technology studies, it explores how algorithmic systems reshape cognition, knowledge production, academic labour, and human relationships in digitally-mediated learning environments. The chapter concludes by proposing a pluriversal design perspective, inspired by Escobar, as a way of reimagining AI-enabled ODDE in terms of relationality, plurality, and ethical responsibility rather than technological optimisation alone.