Fantastic piece--I think this line really nails it for me, "In sum, it is a powerful tool in the hands of the curious and the motivated but devastating to those merely seeking a shortcut." Yes! AI holds promise but only if we pay attention to human oversight, and understand what ways we should use the tool--and in which ways, we need the discipline NOT to use it.
I love this phrase: "The Seductive Ease of Knowing Without Learning". We have indeed been seduced, hypnotised, dazzled, deceived, persuaded, and influenced by the Education Technology Complex. AI is a big part of it, but we took off our thinking caps a decade ago when we set the kids up to click and scroll and flit between tabs on so called "educational" apps during school hours. One question that I have is, Why can't we say no? I investigate our strange parental inertia here: https://whycantwesayno.com Everybody agrees it's no good, but no one makes a move at the individual level.
Well, we’ve never had this challenge before! How are families going to pursue a liberal education for their children ?
I am reminded of the analysis by Sir Roger Scruton (died 2020) who in a 2009 article on Rousseau (who heavily influenced the progressive movement in education) said: “Even if it were possible to educate children in this way, one thing is certain: that each generation would know less than the one before. The labour of discovery would have to be endlessly repeated, and the process whereby knowledge accumulates would come to a halt. And that, of course, is Rousseau’s underlying intention — not to liberate the child, but to destroy all intellectual authority, apart from that which resides in the self.”
I think all this decades-long “dumbing down” via progressive education we’ve been warned about has come to being achieved. How are we now to cope with this new threat, AI, which continues the dumbing down?
I was struck by what your wrote about the de-skilling of teachers. I was at a conference that had a session about AI and the medical profession. It was pointed out that AI can often diagnose as well or better than a human. Trained doctors can check their work against AI. But what happens if we no longer feel a need to train doctors to diagnose illness?
I don't fear for current teachers using AI. We can generate lesson plans, etc. but we have the knowledge, experience and skills to use it to augment what we already do. But what of the new teachers?
As for the students, well, I shudder. I wrote on my own Substack, "ChatGPT can write your history papers and do your math homework, but it absolutely cannot learn for you. The phrase knowledge is power may be cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true."
You're spot on. But if I might add, AI is the sharp edge of this long process of the computerization of society that has decimated culture, reducing it to data that can be coded, stored, retrieved, modified, and transmitted. Thus, any sense of a shared epistemology or even ontology is called into question.
I think the main illusion of learning is that kids learned in the past in school. I imagine that kids will continue to be bored in school during the AI age just as they were bored in school before AI or social media or our cell phones or anything else. The problem with schools is not technology, the problem with schools is schools.
I love this line: "We should take great care—students and teachers alike—to resist substituting the efficiency of AI with the slow, irreplaceable labor of teaching and learning." We're just now starting to grapple with how screens have impacted a generation of children... and now the next big, unregulated experiment begins with the next generation. It's hard to watch. I really appreciate this post and how you've captured the conundrum so beautifully.
The mental digestive process is so important to learning and it appears to be in peril from the ease with which it can now be simulated. The body knows how to extract what it needs from what it consumes and lay waste to what it doesn't. An automated procedure, if you like, but the one that assures us of our health. But it's *thinking* its way through how to optimize the nutrients availed to prosper. The mind responds similarly as it develops, with knowledge not being a straight path. The information fed to it, through the process of learning, gets easier and easier to absorb and makes the mind progressively more acute. AI is phenomenal for advancing knowledge *and* understanding once you have attained a certain level of familiarity with a subject. But it is not organic and if you're young, it's like, "sorry not hungry" for days after coming away with your Halloween stash.
This article is a must read for any and everyone who cares to maintain some sort of cognitive integrity!
Günther Anders hinted at this with his theory of Promethean Shame almost a century ago. Our technologies have been replacing actionable tasks for decades. But what most do not see is we are unconsciously allowing these newer technologies to replace the intangible (cognitive) tasks at an alarming rate. Your article eloquently describes this, and my emerging research, an extension of Anders’ theory I call Promethean Acquiescence—the gradual, often unconscious acceptance of technologically mediated judgment and the transfer of cognitive agency to technologies—seemingly align.
To the knowledgeable it’s clearly visible, intelligent systems are increasingly acting as perceptual intermediaries. Navigation systems, recommendation engines, and generative AI applications shape not merely how humans perform tasks, but how we understand, interpret, and navigate reality. The concern is not simply that people rely on tools, but that reliance becomes invisible—that judgment shifts externally without awareness. Understanding this shift is crucial for effective leadership, education, and safety-critical environments, as well as the preservation of human agency.
AI should be, should be, merely an extension of our curiosity, not a representation of it. However, it is now tied to capitalism and the cat is out of the bag.
I guess we need to ask if anyone really cares if technological mediation influences/replaces their judgment, perception, and cognitive autonomy/agency?
Is cognitive capitulation preferable to the beauty of truly thinking and reasoning through something?
My fear is that majority of society is just not aware of how powerful our creation (AI) truly is.
Favorite quote: “But we should take great care—students and teachers alike—to resist substituting the efficiency of AI with the slow, irreplaceable labor of teaching and learning. Because the great danger of AI is not that it will outthink us but that it will tempt us to stop thinking altogether.”
The tech isn’t the problem, it’s the way it is being pushed by powerful people who would like us to “stop thinking.”
Fantastic piece--I think this line really nails it for me, "In sum, it is a powerful tool in the hands of the curious and the motivated but devastating to those merely seeking a shortcut." Yes! AI holds promise but only if we pay attention to human oversight, and understand what ways we should use the tool--and in which ways, we need the discipline NOT to use it.
Robert, this is a lovely summary. Thanks for writing it with such clarity.
I love this phrase: "The Seductive Ease of Knowing Without Learning". We have indeed been seduced, hypnotised, dazzled, deceived, persuaded, and influenced by the Education Technology Complex. AI is a big part of it, but we took off our thinking caps a decade ago when we set the kids up to click and scroll and flit between tabs on so called "educational" apps during school hours. One question that I have is, Why can't we say no? I investigate our strange parental inertia here: https://whycantwesayno.com Everybody agrees it's no good, but no one makes a move at the individual level.
Well, we’ve never had this challenge before! How are families going to pursue a liberal education for their children ?
I am reminded of the analysis by Sir Roger Scruton (died 2020) who in a 2009 article on Rousseau (who heavily influenced the progressive movement in education) said: “Even if it were possible to educate children in this way, one thing is certain: that each generation would know less than the one before. The labour of discovery would have to be endlessly repeated, and the process whereby knowledge accumulates would come to a halt. And that, of course, is Rousseau’s underlying intention — not to liberate the child, but to destroy all intellectual authority, apart from that which resides in the self.”
I think all this decades-long “dumbing down” via progressive education we’ve been warned about has come to being achieved. How are we now to cope with this new threat, AI, which continues the dumbing down?
Reminds me of Neil Postman's work. Check out his books. Must reads for anyone who cares about thinking and education. Or this podcast: https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/the-man-who-predicted-the-downfall-of-thinking
This excellent essay gets right to the heart of the matter: "[AI] is a knowledge amplifier, not a knowledge substitute."
I was struck by what your wrote about the de-skilling of teachers. I was at a conference that had a session about AI and the medical profession. It was pointed out that AI can often diagnose as well or better than a human. Trained doctors can check their work against AI. But what happens if we no longer feel a need to train doctors to diagnose illness?
I don't fear for current teachers using AI. We can generate lesson plans, etc. but we have the knowledge, experience and skills to use it to augment what we already do. But what of the new teachers?
As for the students, well, I shudder. I wrote on my own Substack, "ChatGPT can write your history papers and do your math homework, but it absolutely cannot learn for you. The phrase knowledge is power may be cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true."
"The effect is not enlightenment but anesthesia." What a fantastic phrase! This could be the tagline for our time.
You're spot on. But if I might add, AI is the sharp edge of this long process of the computerization of society that has decimated culture, reducing it to data that can be coded, stored, retrieved, modified, and transmitted. Thus, any sense of a shared epistemology or even ontology is called into question.
I think the main illusion of learning is that kids learned in the past in school. I imagine that kids will continue to be bored in school during the AI age just as they were bored in school before AI or social media or our cell phones or anything else. The problem with schools is not technology, the problem with schools is schools.
I love this line: "We should take great care—students and teachers alike—to resist substituting the efficiency of AI with the slow, irreplaceable labor of teaching and learning." We're just now starting to grapple with how screens have impacted a generation of children... and now the next big, unregulated experiment begins with the next generation. It's hard to watch. I really appreciate this post and how you've captured the conundrum so beautifully.
I checked the post with It's AI detector and it shows that it's 85% generated!
The mental digestive process is so important to learning and it appears to be in peril from the ease with which it can now be simulated. The body knows how to extract what it needs from what it consumes and lay waste to what it doesn't. An automated procedure, if you like, but the one that assures us of our health. But it's *thinking* its way through how to optimize the nutrients availed to prosper. The mind responds similarly as it develops, with knowledge not being a straight path. The information fed to it, through the process of learning, gets easier and easier to absorb and makes the mind progressively more acute. AI is phenomenal for advancing knowledge *and* understanding once you have attained a certain level of familiarity with a subject. But it is not organic and if you're young, it's like, "sorry not hungry" for days after coming away with your Halloween stash.
This article is a must read for any and everyone who cares to maintain some sort of cognitive integrity!
Günther Anders hinted at this with his theory of Promethean Shame almost a century ago. Our technologies have been replacing actionable tasks for decades. But what most do not see is we are unconsciously allowing these newer technologies to replace the intangible (cognitive) tasks at an alarming rate. Your article eloquently describes this, and my emerging research, an extension of Anders’ theory I call Promethean Acquiescence—the gradual, often unconscious acceptance of technologically mediated judgment and the transfer of cognitive agency to technologies—seemingly align.
To the knowledgeable it’s clearly visible, intelligent systems are increasingly acting as perceptual intermediaries. Navigation systems, recommendation engines, and generative AI applications shape not merely how humans perform tasks, but how we understand, interpret, and navigate reality. The concern is not simply that people rely on tools, but that reliance becomes invisible—that judgment shifts externally without awareness. Understanding this shift is crucial for effective leadership, education, and safety-critical environments, as well as the preservation of human agency.
AI should be, should be, merely an extension of our curiosity, not a representation of it. However, it is now tied to capitalism and the cat is out of the bag.
I guess we need to ask if anyone really cares if technological mediation influences/replaces their judgment, perception, and cognitive autonomy/agency?
Is cognitive capitulation preferable to the beauty of truly thinking and reasoning through something?
My fear is that majority of society is just not aware of how powerful our creation (AI) truly is.
These are almost exactly the same arguments we had through all moral panics in higher education from technological development.
Favorite quote: “But we should take great care—students and teachers alike—to resist substituting the efficiency of AI with the slow, irreplaceable labor of teaching and learning. Because the great danger of AI is not that it will outthink us but that it will tempt us to stop thinking altogether.”
The tech isn’t the problem, it’s the way it is being pushed by powerful people who would like us to “stop thinking.”
Hey, great read as always. You've perfectly articulated how AI provides output without fostering genuin, internal conceptual model building.