Reinventing Education

Section 13 of “Reinventing Societal Infrastructure with Technology” which will be released end of January. I will be posting a new section daily. Please share your feedback as this is a work in progress.

Key drivers: AI to personalize education, open source content, AI tutors, mobile and internet create more accessibility to knowledge and education, AR/VR changing how students can get information.

I recently asked a simple question: Is majoring in liberal arts a mistake for students? The problem, I argued, is that the current liberal arts education does not teach critical thinking and scientific progress in the way that it should or in the way that STEM does. Now, STEM perhaps, doesn’t teach enough of liberal arts — how to create real businesses from science and technology, and applications for best impacting the world.

Ironically, the more AI-driven changes we postulate here happen, the more necessary a real liberal arts education, something I now call “Modern Thinking”. Liberal Arts was what Greek elites indulged in when they did not have to work and servants and slaves did much of the work. Schools teach “in the box” thinking, standardized bubbles tests versus encouraging creativity and thinking in new paradigms. The education system is full of opportunity, and yet, it’s an industry that’s challenging and complex to change.

With technology and new tools, accessibility and equality in education will change, no matter what style or subject of education you want. The ideal “tutor” for the task will always be available. AI tutors will not only allow for more affordable or free accessibility 24x7, but they will personalize education for each person. They will be able to assess where a student is, know the map of their knowledge and gaps in it and be able to guide a student through to their personal learning objectives.

Even for traditional grade or employment-oriented education this is a massive multiplier of teacher resources, letting them be the human element of teaching and not stranding those for whom teachers and tutors are a luxury. And for skills or humanities education AI and social networking enable community learning is an additional multiplier.

**This is a section from “Reinventing Societal Infrastructure with Technology”. To read the previous section, click here.