AI will do more to elevate capitalism in the eyes of the young than any other advance. See Elon Musk to understand why. It turns out his teachers in South Africa thought he was touched.
What to take from such a foolish analysis of Musk? It speaks to arguably the biggest problem in education. It’s not bad teachers, or not enough home schooling, or insufficient vouchers to free kids from “government schools.”
The biggest problem with education today is the popular notion of what a “good education” is. The experts believe it’s rooted in learning math, science, English, social studies, and history. Which means accepted wisdom about what a well educated person is has to do with proficient knowledge of subjects many centuries old.
To see the abject foolishness of the education narrative, ask yourself what businesses thrive today. Are they generally a century old, with the most highly regarded businesses many centuries old? The question answers itself.
Despite that, accepted wisdom about what is a “good education” continues to terrorize way too many young people who have the temerity to not be good at math, science, English, social studies, and history; that, or not good at one or some of the centuries old subjects mentioned.
To which some will surely respond that school is all about molding a "well-rounded" individual. It’s a nice, noble-sounding platitude, but one that’s long been at odds with reality.
If we forget that the subjects taught in school in most ways never reflected our work life (lest readers forget, in the 18th century most worked on farms as is) as is, we can’t forget that work rewards the specialists over the generalists. And with the proliferation of automation throughout much of the 20th and 21st centuries, the rewards for specialized skills continue to grow.
Unfortunately, or more realistically fortunately, specialized work skills can’t be taught in schools. And for obvious reasons: they’re an effect of dynamic advances in the workplace that educators are neither part of nor capable of creating.
All of which raises obvious questions about why there’s generalized instruction at a time when the knowledge required to thrive post-education narrows by the day. This question becomes even more pressing in consideration of how much the education part of school is dreaded by young people. Again, imagine having your mind’s fecundity reduced to your skills in centuries-old subjects. Imagine the horror of it all for way too many.
Which is why the proliferation of AIs that can do math, science, term papers, English term papers, book reports, and everything else is so uplifting. Finally, and after centuries worth of needless suffering, education is being disrupted.
Since young people can now work around what they despise thanks to advances in the marketplace that were logically invented as opposed to taught, education as we know it will have to change. Surely for the better.
Since machines can do for young people what they used to have to do, and regardless of their interest in it or its worth to their future lives, instruction and education will increasingly have to reflect individual passions as a way of encouraging classroom work that will resemble work a great deal less. How else to convince kids to not cheat?
They wisely say markets make everything better, and kids will soon see this up close. AI's disruption of education is a market phenomenon that will reduce the passionate hatred so many young people have for school. Think of capitalism's reputation in the aftermath of just such a change.
