When AI Can Answer Almost Anything, What Is Left for Us?

A look back at the Rethinking Education in the Age of AI meetup

How do you teach in a world where everyone has a tool that can answer almost anything in seconds? And above all: how do we make sure we do not stop thinking for ourselves? These were the questions at the heart of the September meetup Rethinking Education in the Age of AI.

The first autumn meetup of Data & Business VŠE, organised together with the AI Transformers community, brought together around thirty participants. The smaller group turned out to be an advantage. Michal Ličko from AI Transformers opened the evening, took on the moderation and quickly got the whole audience talking. The atmosphere was intimate and friendly, and everyone got a moment to introduce themselves at the start.

Four short talks looked at education from different angles. Ota Novotný spoke about public education, Dana Hague about private education, Michal Ličko about private non-formal learning, and Kateřina Cakin from Tiny (AI dětem) about working with AI directly with children. The panel discussion was hardly needed in the end, because questions from the audience came right after each talk and the debate unfolded spontaneously throughout the evening.

One of the lines that captured the evening best came from Ota Novotný:

“What will be left of us?”

It was not about rejecting technology. It was about what we want to keep as our own ability when tools can handle more and more. This connected to another idea voiced during the evening: capability before convenience. First learn to think, verify and ask good questions, and only then use AI for convenience. In a similar spirit, Tinybots, which Kateřina Cakin from AI dětem and Tiny spoke about, do not hand children ready-made answers but guide them to look for their own.

The meetup did not bring a clear-cut answer, and it was not meant to. It did bring questions, different experiences and space to think about them together.

We would like to thank the speakers and all participants for the open discussion, and the AI Transformers community for the collaboration. Special thanks also go to Martin Weinpold for the excellent photo documentation. Photos from the evening can be found in the gallery below.