Artificial intelligence and the future of school

Artificial intelligence (A.I. is the English acronym) is a feature of some software that simulates human thinking processes; in practice, we could define it as a computer system for content creation.

At present, there are already some apps (actually, very expensive) on the web that easily create images or texts based on instructions. For example, if you ask to create a color image with an eighteenth-century king in a yellow toilet, the system returns you just such an image!

The extraordinary thing about AI is that these contents are not assembled on the contents we already have uploaded on the web; they’re really new contents, creations with no copyright!

Let me give you another example to understand the difference. If I type the words “red car” into an image search engine console, the system returns a result choosing some of the images already present on the net; if I ask the same thing to an AI system, the system creates an original image for me.

Now, many people thinks that’s the beginning of the end of human creativity and many ones believe that this already certifies the end of school, because, with the right instructions, an AI system easily solves mathematical problems, produces texts, creates illustrations; in the near future, it will compose songs, music, interior design and 3D objects and any type of content for any type of communication.

I therefore expect a first censorship reaction to the access of AI in schools.

My thesis is instead that boys and girls must instead get to know it, learn to live with it and use it to solve the great problems of humanity, just starting with school.

Perhaps the future of school is not finding the right answers, but asking new questions.

Advanced technology is always a risk and also an opportunity: it is precisely at school that one must think about the difference. Advanced technology can be used for the good of man or to harm him: it is precisely at school that these directions stand out. Advanced technology can allow you to reason better or not to reason at all: it is at school that one and the other experience must be gained and the need for people to never give up thinking must be supported.