Rethinking Education’s Role in the Age of AI

Rethinking Education’s Purpose in a Changing Landscape

This article is based on an edited transcript from a recent episode of a popular educational podcast.

Consider this striking change over time: In 1976, nearly 40 percent of high school seniors reported reading six or more books for pleasure annually, while only about 11 percent hadn’t read any for fun. Today, those figures have essentially flipped, with roughly 40 percent of students not reading any books for enjoyment.

This trend is evident everywhere. Headlines frequently highlight that children are reading less than previous generations. Professors, even at leading universities, share that students increasingly struggle to complete assigned readings they once handled with ease.

In response, educators have adapted by selecting shorter, simpler texts and reducing reading demands to accommodate students’ changing capacities.

This decline in reading and comprehension skills is reflected in test scores, which have shown a downward trend over the past decade. The recent pandemic further intensified these challenges. When evaluating students’ intellectual development—once considered central to education—results appear troubling.

Compounding these shifts, generative artificial intelligence technologies now offer to perform many academic tasks: summarizing texts, writing essays, and solving math problems complete with explanations, raising profound questions about the future of learning.