Artificial intelligence is changing the way we learn — and it’s revealing how outdated the education system really is.
That’s according to academic and economist Tyler Cowen, an influential commentator and professor at George Mason University.
In a Wednesday conversation with podcaster Azeem Azhar about the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT, Cowen said schools and universities are ill-prepared for a world where students have near-limitless, on-demand knowledge.
“It means admitting that homework is obsolete,” Cowen said. “The easy ways of grading people, like computer-graded exams — they’re obsolete.”
As students increasingly turn to AI to write essays, generate study guides, or explain complex topics, he said many educators are more focused on catching cheaters than rethinking how — and what — students should be learning in the first place.
“There’s a lot of hand-wringing about ‘How do we stop people from cheating’ and not looking at ‘What should we be teaching and testing?'” he said.
For Cowen, the real challenge isn’t academic dishonesty — it’s institutional inertia. Schools and universities are struggling to shift away from test scores and grades, which he argues are rapidly becoming the least relevant markers of learning in the age of generative AI.
“The whole system is set up to incentivize getting good grades. And that’s exactly the skill that will be obsolete,” he said.
Cowen called for a radical shift in how education is delivered. That means moving away from rote memorization and standardized testing and toward mentorship-based learning that emphasizes critical thinking and adaptability.
“Faculty teachers need to be more like mentors. That can be rewarding, but it’s very time-intensive. It’s not something you can do by formula,” he said.
However, Cowen isn’t optimistic about institutions making that shift anytime soon.
“Our ability to reshuffle the personnel, the procedures — we just seem to me really quite frozen,” he said. “I don’t see that they’re changing at any level whatsoever.”
Cowen’s warning comes as OpenAI and Google battle for dominance in the AI education space.
OpenAI launched Study Mode for ChatGPT on Tuesday, a feature designed to transform the chatbot from an “answer machine” into a personalized tutor that slows students down to help them learn.
The tool avoids giving direct answers and instead prompts students to clarify their thinking, a move aimed at tackling the cheating narrative while boosting long-term engagement.
Google has rolled out Gemini for Education, a suite of tools that includes AI-generated quizzes, lesson plans, and videos embedded in search — part of a broader effort to win over students early.
Both companies are betting big that whoever captures the classroom today will own the workplace tomorrow.
Meanwhile, teachers are feeling the strain. Some are embracing AI to create lesson plans and tailor materials, while others are overhauling their assessment models entirely to make cheating harder and learning more meaningful.
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