You can make a strong case that humanity's main preoccupation over the past two hundred years has been improving education in general.

It worked. Despite all the idiots you encounter on the Internet, the data is indisputable. Increases in IQ test scores have been continuous and nearly linear from the early years of testing to the present. This may have stopped the use of leaded gasoline and improved early childhood education, but intelligence levels steadily increased.

What if all this was about to end?

There was a great demo this week from OpenAI on the GPT-4o model. One of the things he highlighted is how it can help teach a student math problems.

On the face of it, this is supposed to improve education but I'm afraid that's not what will happen. Imagine thousands of children with AI models actively staring over their shoulders, pestering them with problems like this.

The danger is that the student will say: What is the benefit? AI has all the answers, so why do I need to learn them?

Already, there is an epidemic of Chat-GPT cheating in high schools and universities. The danger is that the student will say: What is the benefit?

If AI had all the answers, what would motivate children to learn? Moreover, when parents and teachers see that knowledge has become a commodity, will they stop caring about it? Already, there is an epidemic of Chat-GPT cheating in high schools and universities.

Ultimately, societies gravitate toward useful things, and if we had superintelligence in our pockets, people would start to wonder: What's the point?

Now I expect something like this to happen over many decades, so there are no real conclusions for the markets. But it shows that the things we assume about the future — even the most basic things — aren't always true. Even the last twenty years have been noticeable. We assumed that the Internet would make everyone better informed, but instead it puts people in echo chambers and makes them more vulnerable to propaganda.

Unintended consequences are a funny thing.

This article was written by Adam Paton at www.forexlive.com.

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