'To AI' or 'Not to AI' in School?

Last night, I helped my son with some last-minute preparation for an English assessment he is completing today.

The task was to compare opposing views on a topic presented by two different sources. On his own, he chose the use of AI by students in schools as the subject.

I dutifully helped him work through the arguments on both sides. But I do have a strong view on this topic.

Every person should learn how to think critically and develop strong cognitive capability, without the assistance of AI.

That does not mean we should discourage people from using the technology.

Quite the opposite. I use it extensively, in the areas that it’s really good at, and I think learning how to work effectively with it has already become an important capability to be developed.

But there is an important distinction between using AI to extend our thinking and becoming dependent upon it to do our thinking.

We still need to know how to:

• Form an argument.

• Challenge an assumption.

• Recognise weak evidence.

• Compare competing explanations.

• Identify contradictions.

• Work through ambiguity.

My view is not only based on current research, what we already know about healthy neurodevelopment, and the consequences we are beginning to see from outsourcing too much mental effort too early.

It is also shaped by lived experience.

I grew up before digital technology became pervasive, continuously available and embedded into almost every part of daily life.

Many of the basic tasks of life simply had to be done by us, not by a device.

• You remembered phone numbers.

• You navigated without turn-by-turn directions.

• You researched by finding and reading books, journals and newspapers.

• You wrote without autocomplete.

• You worked through situations without immediately expecting resolution.

And importantly, we debated subjects knowing that many of them did not have a single, definitive answer.

We grew up having to be problem-solvers.

Today, technology has profoundly changed how problems can be solved.

But the capabilities of human memory, patience, reasoning, curiosity and the uncomfortable experience of not always knowing still need to be developed in our younger generations.

We should teach people to use technology exceptionally well.

AND we should continue teaching them how to think, reason, judge and solve problems when it is not there.

I’m watching this early-stage initiative closely: https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/09/mayor-mamdani-and-chancellor-samuels-put-students-first-with-nat