What is still worth learning? How AI will reshape the way we think and live

The biggest lie a teacher ever told me was that I needed to learn how to do long division by hand. An entire generation of students heard this claim, based on the mistaken idea that we would not have calculators in our pockets when we were older.

At the time, it seemed inconceivable that everyone would one day carry a device that was not only a calculator, but one that essentially contained all human knowledge. The arrival of smartphones has allowed me to forget most of the maths I learned at school in the 1990s and early 2000s – as well as historical dates, geographical phenomena and scientific formulas – without it ever significantly impacting my day-to-day life.

But now a new technology is challenging not just what we need to learn, but how we learn. The latest generation of AI apps like ChatGPT, Gemini and DeepSeek are rendering traditional homework assignments obsolete, capable of writing original essays or completing worksheets in seconds.

A recent advert for the writing assistance app Grammarly featured a student struggling with his homework. After discovering the new AI tool, he says, “Wow, this sounds like me, only better”.

Educators are rapidly integrating AI into their classes and reshaping courses of study to account for this fundamental shift, but some philosophers and futurists are calling for entire curriculums to be rewritten.

The focus, according to a growing number of advocates, should switch to critical thinking, logic and reasoning. Without these skills, there is a risk of becoming too reliant on AI. If tools like ChatGPT are then handling all of our reasoning tasks, and holding all the facts we would have once been forced to remember, then there is a risk our brain might even begin to atrophy through lack of use.

Earlier this year, researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University in the US found that over-reliance on generative AI was causing workers to lose core skills like creativity, judgment, and problem-solving.

“Used improperly, technologies can and do result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved,” the researchers wrote in a study detailing their findings.

“A key irony of automation is that by mechanising routine tasks and leaving exception-handling to the human user, you deprive the user of the routine opportunities to practice their judgement and strengthen their cognitive musculature.”

This can even be seen in the way people use AI on social media. A recent viral trend has involved people holding an object behind a piece of paper or cloth, and then filming it from an angle with the tagline “How does the mirror know what’s behind it?”

Dozens of responses to one recent video shared on X (Twitter) tagged in Grok, the AI chatbot created by Elon Musk’s company xAI, to ask how it is possible. The chatbot provided responses, as requested, without users needing to engage their critical faculties.

Looking further into the future, advanced AI systems may force a rethink of how we learn to live in a world where most work is not even necessary.

Oxford professor Nick Bostrom, who is best known for warning the world about out-of-control AI in his 2014 book Superintelligence, addressed the issue in his latest book, Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World. In it, he imagined a near-future where AI and robots are able to perform tasks as well as any human.

“Instead of shaping children to become productive workers, we should try to educate them to become flourishing human beings. People with a high level of skill in the art of enjoying life,” he wrote.

“Maybe it would involve cultivating the art of conversation. Likewise, an appreciation for literature, art, music, drama, film, nature and wilderness, athletic competition… techniques of mindfulness and meditation might be taught. Hobbies, creativity, playfulness, judicious pranks, and games – both playing and inventing them. Connoisseurship. Cultivation of the pleasures of the palate. Celebration of friendship.”

Speaking to The Independent last year, Professor Bostrom described these as “radical future possibilities”, for when we get to a stage where today’s problems are solved and the responsibility for further progress can be handed over to artificial bodies and brains.

At that point, society could move away from efficiency, usefulness and profit, and move toward “appreciation, gratitude, self-directed activity, and play”.

This might involve learning physical skills, or even games that artificial intelligence figured out long ago. AI mastered chess 30 years ago, but we still want to play.

Computers have been beating human champions at chess since IBM’s Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov nearly 30 years ago, but people still enjoy playing – and watching – chess. Likewise, if AI masters knowledge, we will still enjoy acquiring it.

That means even in this future scenario, learning still has a place. “I think a passion for learning could greatly enhance a life of leisure,” Professor Bostrom wrote in Deep Utopia. “The opening of the intellect to science, history, and philosophy, in order to reveal the larger context of patterns and meanings within which our lives are embedded.”

This echoes similar sentiments expressed nearly a century ago by former first lady and activist Eleanor Roosevelt, who promoted the intrinsic value of learning – that it is not just a means to an end but an end in itself. “The essential thing is to learn,” she said. “Learning and living”.