Will AI Redefine Smart?

We think AI is the new TI, drawing a parallel between the way scientific and programmable calculators caused angst among educators in the 1970's and the way we hear many faculty today fretting about how AI will change classrooms for the worse. In this podcast from financial giant BlackRock, COO Rob Goldstein makes a provocative assertion with strategic implications for educators at every level: AI will redefine what being smart means.

… I think what happens with technology is as it empowers this new productivity and these productivity step functions, it brings with it changing expectations.

People can look at these technologies through different lenses. I look at it through the lens, I think there's going to be a giant productivity boom. I think there's going to be a giant expectations boom. And I think that how people get smart will change.

This is exactly what happened with calculators! Very quickly, handheld calculators became the norm in schools, enhancing "productivity" by shifting what smart means away from ordinary computation skills to more complex analytic abilities. Will tomorrow's teachers see the same thing happen with writing skills?