Our primary objective in this Special Issue was to respond to potential criticisms of AIED in potentially "perpetuating poor pedagogic practices, datafication, and introducing classroom surveillance" and to comment on the future of AIED in its coming of age. My overarching assumption in response to this line of critiques is that humans and theories of learning perpetuate poor and deceptive practices, not artificial intelligence, and certainly not AIED, a community dedicated to enhancing learning for all learners. Nonetheless, these aspects or potential outcomes of AIED deserve some scrutiny and thought as we realize our full potential in impacting educational outcomes. In the following, I briefly discuss these three points and then discuss where and how I view the future of AIED in realizing its full potential. [This paper was published in "International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education" v34 n1 2024.]