AI's growth sounds warning bells for traditional education

When Elon Musk, in his widely circulated "Moonshots" podcast interview at the beginning of the year, predicted that "we're going to see both widespread job displacement and extreme abundance at the same time" in the next three to seven years, he was undoubtedly pointing to the profound impact of AI on human life. However, this can also be interpreted as a warning bell for education in the AI era.

Regardless of whether Artificial General Intelligence will arrive before 2030 — probably with "a system with the full range of human cognitive abilities" as predicted by DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis at Davos earlier this year — there is no doubt that we already live in an era where AI grows exponentially and becomes increasingly ubiquitous. Widely seen as an extension of human capabilities, AI is becoming a universal social infrastructure, reshaping the underlying logic of how society operates.

Clearly, while AI provides solutions, it also raises critical questions. The most essential of these is how intelligence itself should be defined. When NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang offered the startling definition that "intelligence is about to be a commodity," it seemed to imply that AI is going to devalue general knowledge. With a learning efficiency millions of times higher than that of humans, AI fundamentally alters the relationship between people and knowledge.

At key moments in history, technological shifts brought about leapfrog changes in how knowledge was shared. Following spoken language, writing and printing marked the beginning of widespread dissemination of knowledge. The internet, emerging decades ago, greatly expanded access to information after radio and television. Now, generative AI is redrawing the picture of how human knowledge is produced and passed on. When large language models instantly answer all kinds of factual questions about the world, and a smartphone can tap into millennia of human wisdom, we are entering an entirely new cognitive era.

This is a moment of profound significance for education, a human endeavor dedicated to cultivating future talent. Currently, teachers and students around the world are rightly busy learning to use AI tools like ChatGPT and DeepSeek. But addressing deeper implications is far more complex than mastering a new tool. The assembly-line model of education, a product of the industrial age, is facing unprecedented challenges.

The very concept of learning is being redefined. An exam-oriented system focused on knowledge delivery and standardized production of mental laborers is ill-suited to the AI era. The focus must shift from knowledge cramming to ability cultivation. Regrettably, under the traditional education system, rote memorization and mechanical problem-solving remain widespread.

AI will bring disruptive changes to education at all levels, from kindergarten to postdoctoral studies. This is most evident in the role of teachers. If imparting knowledge was traditionally the core function of teachers, then in the age of AI, their authority as knowledge holders is thoroughly shaken. Any teacher's knowledge pales in comparison to AI. This means the knowledge gap between teachers and students has been brutally flattened. As digital natives, youngsters not only start on the same footing as their teachers but may also outpace them.

This is why a prominent figure in China's education industry asserted that more than half of current primary and secondary school teachers are ill-equipped for the AI era. Long-established ideas and practices are quickly turning obsolete. When teaching content can largely be handled by machines, nurturing students becomes the teacher's most important mission. This not only requires teachers to fully grasp and integrate knowledge, but also to take on the role of mentors in cognition and values — a much easier idea to state than to put into practice.

In the future, schools and families need to place emphasis on shaping children's character traits — such as kindness, courage, and perseverance — focus on developing their learning abilities, including inculcating a love for learning, and prioritize cultivating the capacity to solve real-world problems and adapt to society, not to mention fostering creativity. These are things the current education system can't adequately provide.

According to reports, Anthropic, a Silicon Valley AI giant, recently hired high school students with handsome pay, believing that college graduates today talk big but lack practical utility. While this case may not be typical, AI could indeed lead to the devaluation of certain academic credentials. This is not a denial of talent but the establishment of a new set of talent standards. At the national level, this becomes a strategic issue concerning future competitiveness. The window for traditional education to transform is narrowing.

Last August, the State Council's guidelines on furthering the "AI+" initiative explicitly called for promoting more effective learning systems, integrating AI into all elements and processes of education and, in particular, shifting the focus from knowledge transmission to capability development. This bodes well for the country's future.

The author is chief researcher at the China Watch Institute, China Daily.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

If you have a specific expertise, or would like to share your thought about our stories, then send us your writings at opinion@chinadaily.com.cn, and comment@chinadaily.com.cn.