What has changed?
There used to be a gestation period for new technologies. It provided an introduction to new technologies by initially mimicking the vocabulary and concepts of old technologies, before building their own. This is no longer true. The pace of change is so rapid that the need to adopt, adapt and respond is immediate and relentless. There is no longer the luxury to ‘wait and see’.
The pace of change and the need to adapt immediately are the stark differences between this artificial intelligence revolution and all the others. This seismic change is not yet fully or widely understood. Education is notoriously resistant to change, and currently, educational institutions, and regulators are taking their time addressing issues that were relevant three years ago, but which are no longer significant, or even particularly relevant. Furthermore, responses, investigations and subsequent regulations are too often presumed to be lasting and definitive, when in fact they have a lifespan of a few months at best.
In schools, AI is still viewed with deep suspicion, as something akin to cheating. Emerging regulations seek to protect students and their institutions from AI rather than to empower them. In the meantime, in the creative professions and elsewhere, new entrants are expected to use AI fluently, effectively and intelligently from day one. This dichotomy is surely unsustainable. Young people need to understand new career pathways now to prepare for their future. It is unacceptable to present them with traditional patterns of career development that evolved in contexts and circumstances that simply will not apply to their professional lives.
It is widely reported that 92 million jobs will be displaced by 2030. It is less widely reported that 170 million new jobs will be created. So the future for young people is not one of outright economic disenfranchisement, but rather of profound professional transformation – the old ways won’t work. Education is in what, Babith Bhoopalan, (former Microsoft AI lead) calls ‘scrambling mode’. The pace of change is simply too great for educators to unlearn historic patterns and content and then relearn the ways of the new world. In the meantime, students need to know things now so that they can make informed choices about their career choices. For instance, there is a significant decline in the enrolment to ‘computer studies’ courses. Not because computer studies are less relevant, but because it has migrated and is now being widely embedded in courses where it is needed and relevant.
The creative world is changing dramatically in the face of the artificial intelligence revolution. Professional work is being recompartmentalised. It is true that the demand for execution and repetitive work is shrinking significantly. But students should be aware that work which requires creative direction, where there is a need for vision, taste, and an informed point of view, is growing rapidly. They should know that the human contribution to the creative world will continue to be important. This suggests that they should seek courses which foster: emotional intelligence, creative vision, ethical accountability, and physical dexterity. This is not a choice between the human versus the machine, but a case of judgment versus repetition.
The use of new technologies to undertake the repetitive aspects of creative work, however, does present a significant problem for those wishing to enter the creative world. This is the ‘entry point collapse’. The initial aspects of learning in a creative profession tend to be in the repetitive mode that is most likely to be automated. The loss of these career entry jobs does present young people with a problem.
The Career Ladder?
Schools have a responsibility here. If the career entry jobs don’t exist, how do they help their students navigate the first phase of their career? Schools have to re-examine how they are preparing the younger generation for the future. They will need to resolve the assessment problem that currently casts AI as a problem and embed AI in students’ educational experience. This will be disconcerting and will likely lead to a lot of traditional educational experience being recognised as irrelevant to the professional choices that students, and their parents, have to make. This is information that parents will need as well, as they are part of this conversation.
So children should be using ChatGPT and LLMs. But they should use it intelligently, creating useful summaries, exploring large amounts of content, simplifying it, and then applying their own vision and creativity on top of that work. Schools need to move from fear to design. AI is already here; it is not knocking at the door. We need to accept this. The future world our students will inhabit will focus not on what they know, but how they can use it. Can they: persuade someone to do something; build relationships; show curiosity and exercise critical thinking.
Human contribution remains irreplaceable, but its focus is shifting. To best serve our students, curriculum design should increasingly foster:
- Emotional Intelligence: The foundational element of empathetic, culturally resonant creative work.
- Creative Vision: The cultivation of an informed, independent point of view that algorithms cannot replicate.
- Strategic Direction: Guiding learners to navigate tools purposefully rather than relying on automated generation.
For art teachers and curriculum leaders, the objective is clear: our role is to equip students to lead their tools, ensuring that human ingenuity remains at the heart of the creative process.
This article draws on the contributions of Babith Bhoopalan, Former Microsoft AI leader to the podcast ‘AI Haven’t a Clue.‘ 13/7/1926 with James Chandler and George Butler.