Artificial intelligence could fundamentally reshape education over the next three decades, potentially making many traditional cognitive tasks optional for students, according to experts at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
At the Askwith Education Forum on Wednesday, Howard Gardner, the psychologist and social scientist behind the theory of multiple intelligences, said AI represents "as fundamental a change to education as the world had seen in 1,000 years."
Gardner suggested that the traditional model of schooling-where all students learn the same content in the same way-may become obsolete. "The need to have everybody in the class doing the same thing, being assessed in the same way, will seem totally old-fashioned," he said.
Gardner proposed that by 2050, students may need only a few years of instruction in the basics: reading, writing, arithmetic, and a bit of coding. Beyond that, teachers would function more as coaches, guiding students through activities that challenge their thinking, expose them to ideas, and help them discover professions that excite them. "I don't think going to school for 10 or 15 years as we've done it makes sense," he said.
Gardner, whose 1983 book Frames of Mind outlined distinct types of intelligence, and his 2005 work Five Minds for the Future described the disciplined, synthesizing, creative, respectful, and ethical minds, said AI may soon handle three of these five-discipline, synthesis, and creativity.
"I think most cognitive aspects of mind...will be done so well by large language machines and mechanisms that whether we do them as humans will be optional," he said. He emphasized, however, that respect and ethics cannot be delegated to machines.
Anthea Roberts, visiting professor at Harvard Law School and founder of AI tool Dragonfly Thinking, presented a complementary vision. She argued that the next generation must learn to orchestrate teams of AI: "You become the director of the actor, you become the coach of the athlete, and you become the editor of the writer," she said.
Roberts also highlighted both the risks and opportunities of AI. "You absolutely will have the chance to cognitively offload. And you absolutely will have the chance to cognitively expand. Our duty as individuals and as educators is to try to work out how we do that expansion rather than that replacement," she said.
Roberts described how AI has transformed her own work. After a colleague created a "Robo-Anthea" that could converse fluently from her perspective, she began integrating AI tools into her research. "I now spend almost all my time in constant dialogue with LLMs," she said. "In all my academic work, I have Gemini, GPT, and Claude open and in dialogue... I'm constantly having a conversation across the four of us."
Professor Martin West, who introduced the forum, cited research by Harvard College Dean David Deming showing that over 10% of ChatGPT conversations are classified as tutoring or teaching. "Some of us react to that number with a sense of alarm... Others may acknowledge those risks but look past them to the opportunities that AI provides to personalize instruction and support both educators and students in new ways," West said.
The forum highlighted that while AI may handle many intellectual tasks, the human aspects of education-ethics, respect, and critical engagement-remain essential. Gardner compared the era to the invention of writing and the printing press, emphasizing the historical magnitude of these changes. "If the world exists in 150 to 200 years and people look back at this time, what will be the huge changes that will have been made?" he asked.
Roberts urged educators to find a balanced approach to AI use. "As we think about education moving forward, how do we find a middle ground which is about cultivating critical use?" she said.
