The Future of Education: How new technologies and AI will revolutionize and transform education

"Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel." - Socrates.

Recently #ChatGPT made headlines by passing the US Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), Law school exam, and Google's coding exam. The world is changing fast. Students are cheating with AI. Students are getting help with AI, and teachers are doing the same. The education industry has been grappling with navigating and responding to this disruptive technology, which has turned the education system upside down. And there are heated discussions about whether ChatGPT should be banned or not. 

As Nassim Taleb recently twitted, "ChatGPT passing is not a reflection of ChatGPT but of the examination system." 

#GenerativeAI would lead educators and policymakers to start asking questions like, do we even need tests and standardized ways of evaluating and grading a human mind, as every person is unique? Grading creates unnecessary stress and pressure on students and, in most cases, is an unreliable indicator of true learning. Instead, AI and new technologies can push grades and scores to an afterthought and let learning be the main focus.

Oscar Wilde said, "Education is an admirable thing, but nothing that is worth learning can be taught." Our education system is broken. In a one-size-fits-all approach, we expect sixty students in a class to learn a physics chapter at the same pace and also like it. The #education system, which may have been well-designed for the industrial age, is obsolete and antiquated in the age of AI.

Each human brain and each individual is unique. In recent years, we have made significant advances in understanding pedagogy (the science of learning), yet we are still following the archaic cookie-cutter education system. We know that individuals have preferred ways of processing and retaining information. For example, some individuals learn more effectively when presented with visual information, such as pictures or diagrams, while others learn better when presented with auditory information, such as spoken instructions or lectures. Kinesthetic learners, on the other hand, prefer to learn through physical activity or hands-on experiences. And yet we want to mass-produce education. The way teaching is imparted in most schools, we are preparing children for a world that will no longer exist.

Some things are changing, and there is a silver lining on the horizon. For example, when I was young, we were taught the alphabets in alphabetic order. Today young children are taught "standing line" and "sleeping line" and start with the alphabets which can be drawn from standing and sleeping lines like L, T, etc. It would be nice to see education become more personalized, helping one to find their strengths and passions. 

Technology is disrupting every industry, and education will not be far behind. We need to question the basic fundamentals of the present education system, including what education is, why teach, what to teach, how to teach, how to evaluate, and why to evaluate. 

One of the functional outcomes of mass education was jobs. But skills that help get jobs are becoming obsolete every few years due to rapid technological advancements. For example, with the rise of new web technologies, programming languages, and frameworks, web development skills can become obsolete in a matter of years. Web development skills that were once in high demand, like AngularJS, are being replaced by newer frameworks like React and Vue.js. Now with Generative AI, one can develop an app by giving prompts in English (or other languages), and ChatGPT 4 will code the app or develop a website for you! With Generative AI today, every individual has the potential to become a writer, a journalist, a painter, a musician, an author, or a software programmer, and experts who do not use AI may be at a disadvantage compared to creative novices who use AI.

So what is the most critical skill going forward? It is the ability to learn and reinvent oneself again and again. As the world continues to change at an ever faster pace, whatever knowledge one has will either become irrelevant or require periodic updating. The older one grows, the harder it becomes to learn new skills. Instead of looking at education as an 'investment' that one makes in the initial years of one's life, we need to understand that learning is a lifelong endeavour.

What one learned during the 'first’ degree may no longer be relevant after two decades. Thus many universities and institutions around the world are starting to offer lifelong learning programs and resources ( included in the cost of the primary degree).

Over the past decade, leading universities have forged partnerships with large tech companies to enhance their educational offerings. The trend toward university-tech company partnerships began with the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Many MOOCs are hosted on platforms operated by large tech companies like Coursera and Udacity. In 2019 (pre-covid), a survey revealed that 67% of students enrolled in an online course in the USA lived within 50 miles of their institution. There was a sudden surge in online traffic to MOOCs during Covid as more than 1.7 billion students were shut out of their classrooms. Coursera got over 10 million enrolments in a month, a six-fold increase from 2019. Gen Z learners are motivated to learn on their terms. Online learning allows students personalized education pathways aided by AI, creating a more engaging experience. The regulatory framework also saw a dramatic shift after Covid. India's announcement, allowing the top 100 universities to offer online degrees will radically transform the education sector. 

As these collaborations deepen, the Ivy League universities may become tech platforms, or leading Tech companies could become the most prominent "Education providers.” This would involve them offering not just courses and programs but also a suite of tools and platforms that students could use to collaborate, share knowledge, and advance their work. These tech platforms could democratize access to education and help bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots in education. The $15 million Global Learning XPRIZE is one such example that challenged teams from around the world to develop open-source, scalable software that empowers children to teach themselves basic reading, writing, and arithmetic within 15 months, empowering children to take control of their own learning.

The degrees, which are so crucial for the job market, may also not be relevant in the near future. According to a recent survey conducted by Stack Overflow, the majority of software developers worldwide do not have a formal degree in computer science or a related field. A report by Class Central found that only around 10% of students who enrolled in MOOCs on popular platforms like Coursera, edX, and FutureLearn paid for a certificate or credential. Over 60% of software programmers worldwide learn to program from platforms like Coursera instead of a software degree.

There is a lot of debate about banning ChatGPT in schools and universities. Education is not about testing a student by restricting resources but preparing students to solve real-world problems using all the resources at one's command. At IIT, the easiest exam was when the teacher ensured we didn't cheat. More challenging were exams in which we were allowed notes, and even more difficult were the open-book exams. The ultimate exams were those in which we had to sit in the library and then attempt the question with thousands of books at our disposal! 

The argument against virtual learning is that it diminishes human interaction. However, the debate isn't about replacing physical interaction in schools or group sports with virtual alternatives. Instead, the goal is to prepare students for a rapidly evolving world without sacrificing the benefits of face-to-face interactions and outdoor activities.

Historically, technological advances and tools have been instrumental in our learning, from the abacus and the slide-rule to the calculator or the internet. We have adapted and integrated these resources into our educational systems. Today, the explosion of Generative AI adds an unprecedented advantage to transform the education industry with applications that range from content generation to creating customized lesson plans and assessments for each student. Generative AI can help teachers tailor their teaching to their student's unique needs and learning styles. It can help automate many tedious and time-consuming teaching tasks, such as grading assignments and creating case studies. 

Generative AI can create virtual tutoring environments where students can interact with a virtual tutor and receive real-time feedback and support. Many organizations like Khan Academy and Duolingo are launching GPT-4 tutors.

AI can also create immersive, interactive learning experiences that engage students in ways that traditional methods cannot. By leveraging Virtual and Augmented Reality, Generative AI can transport students to different times and places, allowing them to learn about history, geography, science, etc., in a more experiential and immersive way.

New technologies like Augmented Reality(AR) will add to the transformation of education. #AR makes visualization, annotation, and storytelling more appealing. It allows one to bring an object or concept into an imagined reality and make the invisible visible. For example, medical students are using HoloLens and HoloAnatomy to learn anatomy. With access to the minutest details of the human anatomy in 3D, students' learning is not limited by cadavers' availability for dissection or 2D medical textbook illustrations.

As we understand the working of the human brain, devices are being developed that help in cognitive learning. One such example is Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) devices which use low levels of electrical current to stimulate specific areas of the brain to enhance cognitive function. tDCS can improve working memory, attention, and other cognitive abilities. Some consumer tDCS devices, such as the Foc.us headset, are designed to stimulate the prefrontal cortex to enhance cognitive performance and accelerate learning.

Now, it is up to educational systems to adapt to and adopt the new and advanced tools at their disposal. The purpose of education is not to solve already solved problems by limiting resources but to solve new real-world problems using new tools. Developing the brain to be able to create new tools or to be able to use them to solve problems facing humanity should be the real purpose of education. 

Artificial Intelligence and other emerging technologies have disrupted a myriad of industries in more ways than one. The world is moving to on-demand, personalized, interactive, adaptive virtual learning aided by #AI, #AR, interactive video, and other tools. One such concept is a school without walls – a school as a digitally connected community and platform rather than a maze of rooms and corridors espousing social engineering. We need to move towards education that is ubiquitous, seamlessly embedded in our lives. Education that is learning instead of teaching with facilitators and mentors instead of teachers. Education as a continuous, collaborative, and immersive learning experience rather than an end goal for an exam or a degree.

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically." -Martin Luther King Jr.