AI can help to prepare our children for a “hellish” future

We may celebrate democracy but we must recognise that it is vulnerable and inefficient when addressing such rapidly accelerating, potentially catastrophic events. Democracies have relatively short electoral cycles, and yet substantial change does not happen quickly. Governments are reluctant to push through dramatic legislation that would make a meaningful difference for fear of it negatively impacting their popularity. Instead, facilitated by social media, they adopt short-term, risk-averse, populist policies that limit our capacity to respond to imminent, potentially cataclysmic, global challenges. The institutions we relied upon in the 20th century to keep us safe and prosper are increasingly ineffective. It seems we are always playing catch-up. Climate change is a devastating case in point; governments across the globe have failed to protect us from impending catastrophe.

In 2022, we presented a vision of what the future of education could look like, climate change aside. In our construct, governments harnessed AI to separate education from assessment to provide personalised learning experiences. With AI, we can create a system that is flexible, adaptable, and responsive to the needs of each student.

In the months that have passed, the threats posed by climate change have become ever more pronounced as global mean surface temperatures breached 2oC above preindustrial averages for the first time. Yet governments and educational institutions are still not reacting. This puts the responsibility on us, the public: if we demand an educational system that prepares children for the challenges they will face in a rapidly changing world, making it a critical topic in future elections, governments have the potential to influence the type of education that technologists can provide.

You could shape market demand. Open AI’s Chat GPT is evidence of technologists changing the very nature of the dissemination of information, the impact of which is rapidly transformative in education. Technologists may soon become the dominant force shaping education.

We have little time left in which to influence what 21st-century education will look like, but it must be focussed upon the new reality of this “hellish” future. Technologists primary concern is shareholder value. That is at odds with what we must strive for and demand.

A collective understanding of not only what challenges the world faces, but what new technologies and systems, skills and attributes will be the most appropriate in tackling them is essential to educating children and giving them the chance of a decent future. Civic society needs to recognise that we are in a new era of rapid, interconnected and multifaceted change. We must demand that our governments urgently enact more ambitious, anticipatory, systemic, and inclusive policies.