Economist Daniel Susskind argues that parents and schools should stop trying to “future-proof” children against AI and instead double down on fundamentals while teaching them to use emerging tools. Drawing on personal anecdotes and policy history, he proposes a “teach both, test both” model—explicitly training students to work with and without AI, akin to how calculators were integrated into math education after the Cockcroft Report. He warns that skills once touted as safe, like coding, are rapidly being automated, while AI-enabled tutoring can personalize learning at scale if basic literacy and numeracy remain strong. Susskind urges policymakers to rethink assessment, distinguish AI from social media, and prepare students for problem-solving across professions likely to be reshaped by intelligent systems.
Related articles:
Dermatologist-level Classification of Skin Cancer with Deep Neural Networks
UNESCO Guidance on Generative AI in Education and Research
Introducing the Claude 3 Model Family
‘It Will Change Everything’: DeepMind’s AI Makes a Gigantic Leap in Solving Protein Structures
