...and we are not ready yet
As a father of three young children and a professional who has spent decades working with and writing about technology, I find myself in a unique position to contemplate the profound changes artificial intelligence is already having and will continue to have on our world and economies. My professional experience has given me deep insight into how AI systems are rapidly mastering tasks that once required years of human training and expertise. Yet it's my role as a parent that compels me to look beyond the technical implications to consider what these changes mean for my children's future.
The skills and knowledge that our education system currently prioritizes - the specialized technical capabilities that have traditionally guaranteed professional success - may soon be readily augmented or replaced by AI systems. This transformation isn't just another technological disruption; it represents a fundamental shift in how human beings will create and contribute value to society.
This reality has led me to reflect deeply on what kind of education will truly serve our children. What capabilities will help them thrive in a world where artificial intelligence increasingly matches or exceeds human performance in traditional professional domains? How can we prepare them not just to adapt to this changing world, but to help shape it wisely?
The answer, I believe, lies not in trying to predict what AI will and won’t be able to do – because no matter how well we think we understand the underlying principles of AI systems and how they work, the growth in their capabilities over the last two years have defied the predictions of most ‘experts’ and terrified those whose predictions have turned out to be more accurate. They all agree on one thing however – that we will not be able to compete with AI at its strengths.
Instead, we must focus on developing the uniquely human capabilities that will become increasingly valuable: our ability to understand complex systems, to build genuine relationships, to exercise ethical judgment, and to collaborate in pursuing shared goals. This requires us to fundamentally reimagine not just what schools teach, but how entire education systems develop human potential.
In the face of such profound and grave uncertainties, we are compelled – like any business would be when faced with a disruptive competitor – to focus inwards and try to understand the essence of our human capabilities that we can develop to make us more valuable and productive: our ability to understand complex systems, to build genuine relationships, to exercise courage and ethical judgment, and to collaborate in pursuing shared goals. Some of those abilities may help us differentiate ourselves enough to not have to compete with AI to remain relevant and productive in our careers and our role as citizens. It is possible that Intelligent systems may exceed us in others. But understanding the essence of our humanity and developing holistically as human beings – I feel personally – would still be our best bet.
Our current education systems suffer from three critical weaknesses that make them increasingly unfit for this future. First, they focus almost exclusively on knowledge transfer, neglecting the development of character, social capabilities, and self-awareness that will become increasingly crucial for human value creation. Second, their assessment and certification methods provide only crude, unreliable measures of human capability, failing to capture the full spectrum of what makes someone valuable in real-world contexts. Third, they remain designed for a vanishing world where career paths could be predicted decades in advance and professional knowledge remained relevant for entire careers.
The rapidly evolving economy demands a fundamentally different approach. Instead of training students for specific careers that may not exist when they graduate, we must develop their capacity to adapt, learn, and reinvent themselves throughout their lives. This means focusing on character development and core capabilities that transcend specific professions - critical thinking, ethical judgment, emotional intelligence, and collaborative ability. It requires creating formal institutional pathways for lifelong learning, enabling continuous upskilling and retraining as circumstances change. Most importantly, it demands new ways to assess and verify not just knowledge and skills, but character, social integration, and personal integrity.
In essence, we must transform education from a system focused on preparing young people for predictable careers into one that develops complete human beings capable of navigating and shaping an unpredictable future. In the next few weeks, we will discuss how such a transformation is not only possible but essential for our children's future.
