Lots of people posted about the story of a study by David Stromberg, Victor Lei and Yanhui Wu on 27,000 students in China and how those using AI completed homework quicker, got better marks in the homework and then did worse on their exams (compared to a control group who didn’t use AI).

You can find the study here.

So everyone’s saying…

You have to use it the right way.

Or even…

AI makes you dumber.

But that’s not the point at all.

Those using AI did worse in exams that test “not-using-AI skills”. Big surprise.

But we need to redraw the value-map around those skills.

And look. I’m the first to say we absolutely have to preserve the business of imparting and developing good old fashioned knowledge in our students. 100% definitely.

So we do need to keep testing “not-using-AI skills”.

But we MUST also accept that the nature of “knowledge-work expertise” is changing.

It’s nearly already true. And in 10 years…

Every expert lawyer will be an AI-enabled lawyer. Every expert engineer, accountant, teacher, doctor, will be AI-enabled. Every business, every charity, every government…

So what and how we’re teaching and assessing EVERYTHING needs to change.

If you hear…

“Study of 27,000 students shows using AI in homework makes you worse at doing tests designed without AI in mind…”

Don’t focus on the word “worse”.

Focus on the tests designed without AI in mind.

And start re-writing the tests.