The Learning
Human learning at its core involves understanding and refining of accurate predictive models of reality. This is done through a constant feedback mechanism and compressing knowledge to make it understandable.
Before the advent of AI, this task was largely outsourced to schools and colleges. There were “experts” in every field who were responsible for imparting knowledge of their subject-domains. However, this system was not without its flaws. The curricula were slow to be updated, lagging behind decades of new discoveries. The teacher expertise was highly subjective. Two “experts” with the same degrees and qualifications were seldom equal in their understanding or in their way of imparting education. Another factor that was often ignored was the individual cognitive rates. Either a teacher was too fast or too slow for a student. That sweet spot of perfect learning pace was seldom found.
However, with the advent of AI, these problems are becoming relics of the ancient past. AI can synthesize all the world knowledge in real time, can provide personalized explanations and does not have any issues in matching the individual cognitive rates of learners. The patience of AI is infinite, it is willing to work with the learner as long as is required, and it actually does this at a fraction of the cost of the schooling or going to a college.
The Past
AI will also merge the concept of schools and colleges. Earlier students had to prepare themselves to become good for colleges. It was a step-by-step process. First finish all the grades of school, and then eventually, move on to college education. For most of the students, it was actually quite burdensome. A student who was great in one subject was forced to become mediocre because he had to score optimal marks in all the subjects in order to get admitted to a college or course of his choice for higher education. The college and schooling system promotes mediocrity. It is like a factory that is meant to produce products of similar specifications and treats human expertise as expendable.
At one point of time, when the world actually needed people with similar qualifications who would be fitted like parts of a machine in a system, the schooling and college system thrived. Countless parents fell into this trap and aspired for their kid to become an expendable entity by getting “employed” in some big corporate or government enterprise. Entrepreneurship was a club reserved only for the rich and the privileged.
Anybody who wanted to do business was lectured by the society not to take unnecessary risks and to follow the middle path where you can have a nice comfortable life. Social conformity was often praised, and neurodivergent populace was ridiculed. Creativity was considered a curse and parents actively worked to suppress the imagination of a child.
The Future
But now the days of traditional schooling and colleges are nearing their end. Today, AI can provide all the tools and knowledge that one needs to prepare for the future. By the next decade, it will become even more clear that college education is optional, and do it at your own risk. Today, home-schooling is considered risky by the majority of the parents. A decade down the line, college education is going to be considered risky by the majority of the parents.
Parents in general love to indulge in FOMO (fear of missing out). Once a sufficient number of parents start doing home-schooling, and once those home-schooled kids actually end up building cool things or start working in cool places, the trend will shift immediately. Only those colleges and schools that actually promote creativity, nurture a sense of imagination and help kids expand their dreams would survive.
Totally interesting times to live in.