We are educating our children to be redundant in a digital world
AI need not be our downfall. Used wisely, it can be the catalyst for a new age of human flourishing, if, and only if, we rise to the challenge of conscious leadership, says Anthony Seldon
We hear regularly about the future of humanity being under imminent threat from environmental extinction, nuclear war (more threatening now than at any point this century) and from virulent epidemics.
But a bigger threat than all of these is AI. Gently, soothingly, ever so stealthily, AI is intruding into, invading, infantilising our lives.
Think I’m exaggerating? How many times have you used generative AI in the last 24 hours? Compare that with the number of times you used it two years ago. How many times do you think you’ll be using it in two years’ time?
In ten years? Notice whether you are growing to depend on it, if your initiative and even intelligence are being affected? ‘Not me!’ you may reply with confidence. Ah. ‘Why listen to the studies showing that the mental capacity of medical specialists relying on AI is beginning to decline’ you might reply. ‘Just more false facts from academia, puerile alarmism’.
To be sure, AI has many benefits, not least in health, social care, research and education. But we will only safely milk these gains if we are eyes wide open about the capacity for AI to infantilise us without us even realising it.
Want the good news? There are ways through this, but only if we witness a revolution in thought and action, no less purposeful for not being violent, a revolution from below, from the young, from the foot soldiers and the small battalions who refuse to see all that makes life precious wrenched away.
Gen Evolve
This is why I believe in the work of Gen Evolve. It represents the kind of ground-up revolution our age so urgently needs, not one of violence or ideology, but of values; a movement rising from below: educators, entrepreneurs, health professionals and business leaders who refuse to see their children reduced to data points or redundant in an automated world.
In its blueprint for education, I see the beginnings of the transformation that can restore purpose, humanity, and leadership to learning itself.
If education is where humanity begins to heal, technology may be where it is ultimately tested.
The hope is that AI can itself be the catalyst for us becoming more fully human. Sometimes, it needs pain and disruption to bring about change. We cannot delay. Why? Because we are already in deep trouble. Well before the advent of AI, we’ve been sucking humanity out of everyday life.
Here’s some examples. Schools valuing success not in enhancing character of pupils but solely by exam passes, with one third of young people, overwhelmingly the least advantaged, told that they have ‘failed’. A school system that prioritises robotic checklists, and a university system where students are lucky if they enjoy any genuine engagement with their teaching staff. High streets stripped of local shops and family businesses in favour of out-of-town supermarkets where, with luck, one need never talk to a human being, if the automatic check out is working.
In a world where the city increasingly seeks authentic impact, the parents, educators and entrepreneurs of Gen Evolve are showing what that looks like on the ground. It invites every parent, teacher and employer to help rewrite the social contract between technology and humanity
The catalyst for a new age
AI need not be our downfall. Used wisely, it can be the catalyst for a new age of human flourishing, if, and only if, we rise to the challenge of conscious leadership.
Parents already sense that the system is creaking. Employers see it too: a generation ill-prepared for a world of constant change. The answer is not another top-down reform, but innovation from below, nurtured by enlightened investment from above.
The city has a vital part to play. If Britain is to remain a global centre of creative and ethical enterprise, it must invest not merely in infrastructure or balance sheets, but in human potential. Every pound directed towards a pioneering model such as Gen Evolve is a down payment on the moral and economic resilience of the next century.
Our children are the first generation to grow up in a world where reality can be simulated and creativity outsourced, and perhaps the last who can decide whether we remain truly human. Do not leave that decision to government or Big Tech.
Join the conversation. Shape the change. Walk beside Generation Evolve and join the movement here https://www.genevolve.org/
Sir Anthony Seldon is an author and historian