We need to deprecate an obsolete paradigm based on memorization and acquisitive success. Human short-term memory is relatively poor, by the time we're adults we forget much of what we learned in school. We should embrace AI as a tool to access knowledge instantly, freeing us to focus on important skills like learning how to learn, problem-solving, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, etc.
AI is simply reflecting the things that we don't do so well back to us. It's revealing that there is perhaps an over-reliance on a level of cognition that is equally or better handled by a machine so that humans can focus on deeper cognitive challenges.
I’m at university now and the way this is presented has obviously motivated me to comment.
So much of what we are asked to do is structure based repetition.
“When you get the results write them up exactly like this. This is the convention. No deviation. Even if the answer is right and your meaning clear.”
“Start an essay like this.
End an essay like that.
Don’t use I or we or us.
No contractions. (Don’t write the way normal people do).
Use 12 point Arial. Wide margins. Double spacing.
Here are your learning outcomes.
This is the rubric.
These are the books to read. Yes, we know they were written in the late 19th century, yes, we know most the words are Latin, and yes we know you won’t understand any of it.
Use articles and papers that are written so only academics can read them. We won’t teach you how to discern a good article from a bad one. Use our library, we can’t afford access to all papers, you may have to pay to read some to find out that they’re not relevant. Or just read these two that are. Yes, they’re the same one’s your Dad used here in 1980.
Take concepts and theories that men (mostly) have written at a time when there was war or religious fervour or slavery. Repeat their theories then find one that refutes it.
Write it in a PEEL structure so that the tutor and external examiner don’t have to struggle to understand your work.
We will grade the essay as we have 1’000’s before you in a semi automated rush because we have only got 20 working days to give you feedback about the myriad ways you’ve messed up the citations and referencing.”
This isn’t learning either.
This is doing what you’re told. To act and comply with conventions that are arcane and outdated.
If AI can get a pass in an assignment, it proves there is no learning. It’s pattern recognition and repetition. Nothing more.
What I’m learning is that a lot of people achieve a degree, because they had the capacity to learn how to paraphrase information, and present it in the way that is prompted.
Which is exactly what AI does.
I get the fear. I understand your point. The way I learn is by having someone (or something) translate language I don’t understand, into language that I do.
The really confusing thing for me is why this is so unacceptable or hard for academics to grasp. Is it because it makes fancy writing accessible to everyone?
I’ve asked AI over and over. “I don’t get it. Say it in a way that I’d understand it.”
It doesn’t charge me. It doesn’t denigrate, patronise, sigh, eye roll - I don’t have to feel inadequate in front of my peers.
It will give me a thousand examples, several metaphors, analogies, parables or modern equivalents.
If that means I’m not learning the hard way. That I’m taking short cuts and can’t be a proper “academic”?
I like this, I do think it’s a bit lacking though. I agree I think AI is a crutch and unless we address the systemic issues that lead to injury, I think the larger society will see it as a positive thing as if the crutch appeared out of nowhere and that because they’re is a crutch they’ll never be injured again, in truth the culprit is still out there scattering knee caps, just because you got hit once doesn’t mean you won’t get hit again. I can sympathize with people who have accessibility needs and use AI to bridge the gaps but it’s not a permanent solution, it never will be. AI is an invention by companies who’s only goal is making money and if a service is free it’s because your the product.
This actually made me realize why I’ve been so annoyed that everyone is hating on AI: I don’t use it to *make* things—I use it to *find* things. Google can’t index a lot of stuff on social media and social media has killed a lot of blogs and smaller websites and forums that used to be higher ranking and made up a wealth of the internet. Reddit is almost always the top search result now. And so many of the blogs or blog articles have become SEO farms for products and services. AI helps me find higher-quality resources that have been buried. I never take what it says at face value—I’m basically using it as a search engine because Google search and the internet itself has become so low quality and crappy and affected by algorithms and SEO and ads. I don’t love the idea that AI has the potential to massively curate in a silent way—the same way Google search now curates like a MF. But for this moment, until it starts getting turn into a tightly controlled commodity, I’m actually able to find documents and articles and references far more effectively using AI than straight search engines. So I am seemingly using it to do the opposite of what a lot of people are using it for—to actually locate learning resources or information that has been largely wiped away or buried by algorithms.
I feel really conflicted about this article. It's not that we do not want to wander, soak in and dwell on things anymore, it's just that we do not have that luxury anymore - especially in this fast-paced capitalistic world. AI makes things easier - as it should. I think what we can do going forward is to embrace the changes AI is bringing and reshape our values as we go.
"Smoothness—the lack of friction, texture, and variation—makes us slip and fall into one extreme or the other."
I love this idea that jaggedness or spikiness in our personalities and culture are “guardrails” against slipping into extremes, whether political or social. Quirks are features, not bugs.
This is such a fun and visually striking metaphor! I can see it in my mind as soon as I read it. Great writing!
You’re right, academics shouldn’t be easy. It should strip you and challenge all of your preconceptions, that’s how we evolve. However, as you point out, we need nuance. It’s a shame you didn’t explore this with reference to AI. At the end of the day AI is like any other technology, it in itself just exists. AI is not making people genuinely stupid, it is the way that they are using AI which is making them stupid.
AI is not the problem, traditional education is. AI just makes it more evident. Long before AI, schools and degrees were already drifting toward irrelevance (see: https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2014/03/05/the-problem-with-lecturing).
We need to deprecate an obsolete paradigm based on memorization and acquisitive success. Human short-term memory is relatively poor, by the time we're adults we forget much of what we learned in school. We should embrace AI as a tool to access knowledge instantly, freeing us to focus on important skills like learning how to learn, problem-solving, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, etc.
+1. I think AI reveals how arbitrary a lot of tests are
This!
AI is simply reflecting the things that we don't do so well back to us. It's revealing that there is perhaps an over-reliance on a level of cognition that is equally or better handled by a machine so that humans can focus on deeper cognitive challenges.
On point!,teach in schools how to use AI from as early as practical.
LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE THE BACK!
I wrote something similar: “AI didn’t start this. But it will finish it unless we step in.
In Ulysses, James Joyce wrote: “Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”
We must choose the “longest way round” because meaning is neither fast nor viral nor optimized.”
https://www.whitenoise.email/p/when-the-internet-was-for-people
The fire you speak of—the temple of difficulty—is real. But what burns most isn’t friction.
It’s simulation.
Academia became hollow not just from ease, but from performing difficulty without transformation.
Smoothness isn’t just aesthetic. It’s institutional anesthesia.
If we want to become human again, we don’t need more lectures.
We need to stop mistaking rigor for ritual.
Struggle means nothing unless it cuts.
Let the system collapse. Let the student remember what it means to become.
I’m at university now and the way this is presented has obviously motivated me to comment.
So much of what we are asked to do is structure based repetition.
“When you get the results write them up exactly like this. This is the convention. No deviation. Even if the answer is right and your meaning clear.”
“Start an essay like this.
End an essay like that.
Don’t use I or we or us.
No contractions. (Don’t write the way normal people do).
Use 12 point Arial. Wide margins. Double spacing.
Here are your learning outcomes.
This is the rubric.
These are the books to read. Yes, we know they were written in the late 19th century, yes, we know most the words are Latin, and yes we know you won’t understand any of it.
Use articles and papers that are written so only academics can read them. We won’t teach you how to discern a good article from a bad one. Use our library, we can’t afford access to all papers, you may have to pay to read some to find out that they’re not relevant. Or just read these two that are. Yes, they’re the same one’s your Dad used here in 1980.
Take concepts and theories that men (mostly) have written at a time when there was war or religious fervour or slavery. Repeat their theories then find one that refutes it.
Write it in a PEEL structure so that the tutor and external examiner don’t have to struggle to understand your work.
We will grade the essay as we have 1’000’s before you in a semi automated rush because we have only got 20 working days to give you feedback about the myriad ways you’ve messed up the citations and referencing.”
This isn’t learning either.
This is doing what you’re told. To act and comply with conventions that are arcane and outdated.
If AI can get a pass in an assignment, it proves there is no learning. It’s pattern recognition and repetition. Nothing more.
What I’m learning is that a lot of people achieve a degree, because they had the capacity to learn how to paraphrase information, and present it in the way that is prompted.
Which is exactly what AI does.
I get the fear. I understand your point. The way I learn is by having someone (or something) translate language I don’t understand, into language that I do.
The really confusing thing for me is why this is so unacceptable or hard for academics to grasp. Is it because it makes fancy writing accessible to everyone?
I’ve asked AI over and over. “I don’t get it. Say it in a way that I’d understand it.”
It doesn’t charge me. It doesn’t denigrate, patronise, sigh, eye roll - I don’t have to feel inadequate in front of my peers.
It will give me a thousand examples, several metaphors, analogies, parables or modern equivalents.
If that means I’m not learning the hard way. That I’m taking short cuts and can’t be a proper “academic”?
Feels a bit elitist tbh.
This has got to be one of the best Substack articles I’ve read all year. Very well done. If only university administrators would read stuff like this!
Thank you very much for this Stack. It encapsulates the thoughts I've been having about AI.
🔥🔥
Having read many of your essays, I can't help but notice that Santiago often shows up in many of them. You must love The Alchemist a lot :)
Santiago changed my brain chemistry in high school
We need to learn to focus more on Principal learning, rather than Agent learning.
We need to be independent thinkers, rather than stuck in known system.
We need difficulty!! I loved this piece Sherry!
Thank you Caroline!
Sorry, you are so wrong on this. I usually love your stuff and I'm calling bs.
AI is not going away, our goal is to embrace and shape. It has the potential to give us a 30 hr work week.
I lived long enough to have heard the "no calculators " nonsense.
Show your work. Use every tool.
Tools aren’t supposed to do the work for you.
I like this, I do think it’s a bit lacking though. I agree I think AI is a crutch and unless we address the systemic issues that lead to injury, I think the larger society will see it as a positive thing as if the crutch appeared out of nowhere and that because they’re is a crutch they’ll never be injured again, in truth the culprit is still out there scattering knee caps, just because you got hit once doesn’t mean you won’t get hit again. I can sympathize with people who have accessibility needs and use AI to bridge the gaps but it’s not a permanent solution, it never will be. AI is an invention by companies who’s only goal is making money and if a service is free it’s because your the product.
This actually made me realize why I’ve been so annoyed that everyone is hating on AI: I don’t use it to *make* things—I use it to *find* things. Google can’t index a lot of stuff on social media and social media has killed a lot of blogs and smaller websites and forums that used to be higher ranking and made up a wealth of the internet. Reddit is almost always the top search result now. And so many of the blogs or blog articles have become SEO farms for products and services. AI helps me find higher-quality resources that have been buried. I never take what it says at face value—I’m basically using it as a search engine because Google search and the internet itself has become so low quality and crappy and affected by algorithms and SEO and ads. I don’t love the idea that AI has the potential to massively curate in a silent way—the same way Google search now curates like a MF. But for this moment, until it starts getting turn into a tightly controlled commodity, I’m actually able to find documents and articles and references far more effectively using AI than straight search engines. So I am seemingly using it to do the opposite of what a lot of people are using it for—to actually locate learning resources or information that has been largely wiped away or buried by algorithms.
I feel really conflicted about this article. It's not that we do not want to wander, soak in and dwell on things anymore, it's just that we do not have that luxury anymore - especially in this fast-paced capitalistic world. AI makes things easier - as it should. I think what we can do going forward is to embrace the changes AI is bringing and reshape our values as we go.
"Smoothness—the lack of friction, texture, and variation—makes us slip and fall into one extreme or the other."
I love this idea that jaggedness or spikiness in our personalities and culture are “guardrails” against slipping into extremes, whether political or social. Quirks are features, not bugs.
This is such a fun and visually striking metaphor! I can see it in my mind as soon as I read it. Great writing!
Agree with everything you’re saying and I love the comparisons to “smoothing” of the world and cutting out diamonds!
You’re right, academics shouldn’t be easy. It should strip you and challenge all of your preconceptions, that’s how we evolve. However, as you point out, we need nuance. It’s a shame you didn’t explore this with reference to AI. At the end of the day AI is like any other technology, it in itself just exists. AI is not making people genuinely stupid, it is the way that they are using AI which is making them stupid.