Educators these days seem rather preoccuptied with trying to either contain the negative impact of AI or capitalize on its potential. Embedded in this quagmire is the age old question of how we can best prepare our students for their uncertain future: Do we ban the use of AI all together in our classrooms? How can we encourage students to write without over-relying on AI? How can we educate students about conducting meaningful research or modernize teaching in light of AI? And so on.
Anyone who professes to have all the right answers to these complex questions is (likely) trying to sell you something (or is an AI disguised as a human?). I certainly cannot say with much certainty (with my limited human intelligence and all) what skills our students will need for them to be successful down the line.
If I had to guess, educational institutions have never excelled at predicting what subject-specific knowledge our students should gain to ensure their future success. For example, less than a decade ago, educators were convinced that everyone should learn how to code. Before that, all the rave was about global citizenship (or 21st Century) skills and STEM prior to that. Given our (relatively poor) track record, the only thing educators can really guarantee on this matter is that whatever substantive skill that we think will be important today, will likely be quite unimportant and out-of-fashion in a few years (if not sooner). This is part of the reason (probably and albeit a small one) why universities keep emphasizing more fundamental, practical skills like critical thinking or problem-solving, because they are deemed - at least for the time being - to be timeless and foundational.[1]
Given our cognitive constraints and assortment of concerns related to the expansion of AI, some educators have noted that education is currently experiencing an exsistential crisis, where teachers and educational institutions may soon become obsolete or irrelevant. A similarly dystopian view has recently garnered a lot of attention, which is Roman Yampolskiy’s theory that 99% of the world will be unemployed in the near future because of AI.
This type of doom and gloom forecasting, however, is nothing really new in the long and complicated relationship between technology and education.[2] When the Internet first came about, people predicted the imminent death of educational institutions (e.g. “who needs schools if we can just look up all the information on Google!?”).[3] More recently, many believed that online education propped up during the COVID years would fundamentally alter the way we teach. However, couple years removed from the pandemic, things have – more or less – reverted back to how things were before.
The point here isn’t to dismiss the seismic impact AI is having - and will likely continue to have - on education and our society at large. However, perhaps an even more stubborn force than the might of AI is our ability to continuously adapt. This is to say that we will likely adapt in one way shape or form to AI and before we know it, what was once extraordinary – for better or for worse – will become ordinary and mundane (probably for the worse).
Nevertheless, just in case Yampolskiy’s prediction about the rise of superintelligent AI and the obsolescence of human intelligence/workforce does come true, it might be worth spending a moment now to already start thinking about what we will do with all the “free time” that will be forced upon us.
For the sake of irony and giggles, I asked ChatGPT “what makes a human a human” and it provided a list of characteristics, with a neat summary, which read as follows: “Ultimately, ‘being human’ is not one trait but a constellation: Biology gives us the structure, cognition gives us the mind, culture gives us meaning, and relationships give us identity.” For each part of the constellation, ChatGPT elaborated further: For example, it noted things like to be human is to “experience rich emotional lives”, to “form deep interpersonal bonds” and to “care about things beyond immediate survival”.
Taking a cue from our soon-to-be-overlords, we could indeed make the time to connect more meaningfully with others or try and feel something profound with the time that we are given. Instead of just skimming through an AI-generated summary of a book, we could - god forbid - take the time to read it from cover to cover (I highly recommend Train Dreams by Denis Johnson).
On this point of living with an existential threat hovering over our heads, I keep thinking about the C.S. Lewis’ essay, On Living in an Atomic Age, written back in 1948 (it’s a piece I keep coming back to). The short piece is about life during the Cold War era, where the threat of nuclear annihilation was a real possibility (I suppose it still is, but as I said earlier, we adapt and the extraordinary becomes the ordinary). In his essay, Lewis encouraged people not to be paralyzed by fear of extinction, but for people to continue being humans (e.g. reading, playing tennis, chatting with friends).
I suppose the same lesson can be cut-and-pasted for us today: Despite the growing concerns over AI and how educational institutions may fall short of reaching our lofty aspirations, we ought to keep doing inherently human things (and encourage our students to do the same). This probably means different things for everyone, but for me, it comes down to making time to have fun (e.g. organizing a foosball tournamen at work). It’s not just about assignments and placing students in the right grading rubric or how to incentivize “proper” AI use. It should be more about inspiring future generations of humans, with all their flaws and limitations, to be compassionate and to act in service to those around them. Whatever you end up making time for, I hope it is in furtherance of this dream.
At least until the AI overlords wipe us all of course 🤪
[1] Although who knows whether even these skills will survive once AI reaches superintelligence or singularity down the line (but that’s a rabbit hole we probably should avoid going down).
[2] While technology is probably a net positive for education, it also has very serious side effects (e.g. we have way too many screens in our classrooms) that sometimes feels insidious.
[3] I found that the answer to this question comes down to the fact that we will need to know things for ourselves for when the Internet is down or when that information is behind a paywall.
