AI Will Transform Education

While a global pandemic has largely defined this decade up to this point, I believe a realistic trajectory exists for the 2020s to be remembered and defined as the moment something else took place.

I believe the 2020s can and will be known as the decade that superhumans were born.

I distinctly remember sitting in a movie theater as a high school student and seeing an eccentric billionaire named Tony Stark, who leveraged his strengths as a phenomenal mathematician and visionary, to create an armored suit which held technology which transformed him into a superhero: Ironman. While Tony Stark was just a man, Ironman, protected by his armored suit with flying capabilities and futuristic weapons, could save the day and help others.

I remember thinking — how cool would it be if I could be Ironman, yet as I saw it, two main problems existed: I was not a billionaire and I also did not have a key piece of technology that I noticed Tony Stark was leveraging to create his ironman suits and handle really complicated problems, like pressure testing a suit design against atmospheric pressure, in shorter time periods.

That technological companion was called Jarvis, a virtual assistant with agent-like capabilities who brought Ironman to life and allowed the suit to function.

With OpenAI releasing ChatGPT in November 2022 and all of the developments in artificial intelligence models and capabilities, I believe we are at an inflection point where we all have access to our very own Jarvis-like technology and it doesn’t cost a billion dollars to tap into.

The question now is, will we as individuals build our own ironman suits?

Now I’m not talking about the armored suits in the same way they were envisioned in the movies. I mean will we build our technological armor that enhances our strengths, mitigates our weaknesses, and expands our impact towards the specific purposes we’ve outlined?

Imagine a doctor donning an AI-enhanced suit that sharpens diagnostic accuracy by integrating the latest research and technological advancements. This suit not only suggests the most effective treatments but also automates patient documentation during consultations. As a result, doctors can treat more patients with heightened precision, without the burden of paperwork.

Envision a teacher equipped with an AI suit that crafts personalized, captivating lessons tailored to each student’s interests. Before each lesson, the suit predicts and prepares for potential challenges by creating multilingual, animated tutorial videos — made effortlessly using simple prompts. It also offers diverse learning materials and translates content for English language learners, ensuring inclusivity. This AI-powered efficiency doesn’t just save time — it enriches classroom interactions, allowing teachers to spontaneously introduce anecdotes and activities that resonate personally with students, fostering a nurturing learning environment.

While this may seem like nothing more than a pipe dream, a reminder that two years ago, widely available technology which could produce an essay on difficult prompts in seconds, pass the most rigorous academic exams in our world, and generate images, audio, and video out of thin air was incomprehensible for many of us.

And yet right now, all of those things are possible, continue to improve, and the world’s largest companies and countries have made continued AI development one of their top priorities. This means we will likely continue to see more sophisticated generative AI models, AI agents, and the mainstream emergence of robotics within the next couple years.

While I believe the 2020s will be known as the dawn of superhumans, this will not be without potential consequences we need to solve for. While my podcast goes into depth on many of the challenges, such as biases, intellectual property, environmental challenges, geopolitical concerns, and ai deepfakes, I believe the biggest consequence we need to ensure we solve for is preventing AI haves and have nots.

We cannot allow superhumans to only emerge from highly resourced, affluent communities. Regardless of resources, one promising opportunity with AI tools is that they can be accessed with a device.

Unfortunately, we know a device and access is not sufficient. For our young people to develop the skills they need in the world they will inherit, it is going to take a concerted effort from the adults most proximal to them — the adults they look up to and trust.

Many surveys I’ve explored over the past year unfortunately show that we are trajecting down a path of creating AI have and have nots. AI usage is most frequently used by highly educated white and Asian males. Over the last year, AI exploration and adoption is happening in seismic rates across workforce sectors, but is only a blip in the public education system.

Fortunately, there is time to course correct and heed lessons from other technological consequences like social media and create a world and an educational system for our young people which leverages the power of artificial intelligence while mitigating its consequences.

The exciting, but equally scary part of this, is for us to make this course correction, it is going to require a transformation of the educational system.

When I think about what a radical transformation of education actually looks like, I often try to picture it through the eyes of my 9 month old son who will be starting his educational journey in a few years.

When my son starts his journey, I know I want a few things to be true about his experience to set him up for life. I believe his educational experience should be heavily focused on durable skills like collaboration, communication, character, mindfulness, metacognition, leadership, growth mindset, fortitude, critical thinking, and creativity. I also believe his learning experience should be interdisciplinary — rather than thinking of subjects in isolation, I want him to realize the world is complex, and complex problems require the ability to think in a lot of different disciplines. I also believe my son should have a heavy dosage of experiences focused on learning how to use technology and how to develop a strong lens for information integrity.

Beneath all of this, I think the most important element of what I hope my son experiences in school is that he experiences an environment where he feels seen, heard, and has time to explore his strengths, values, purpose, and interests.

These are the foundational conditions which I believe will cultivate my son’s humanity, so that he can build his superhumanity.

Ironically, I think if you ask most teachers why they got into teaching, creating this type of environment is likely a big part of it, but our system has gotten so far away from what education truly needs to be about.

Transformation of our system will require us to be bold and courageous. It will require us to prioritize conversations which develop AI literacy, and be open to the possibility of radically changing our day to day educational experience.

I believe the tradeoff is worth it and will continue pushing for transformation in the spaces I hold and invite you to do the same.

If you are interested in continuing the conversation, check out The AI Education Conversation on your preferred listening platform or message me on LinkedIn.

Humans at the heart of education.