The Educational Transition: School and University in the Age of AI

After the interview on technological singularity, Adnkronos published a second conversation of mine with Roberta Lanzara, this time about school and university. It was the question the first one left open: if the world advances fifty years in five, what happens to an education system built for a world standing still. The agency’s article, with the outlet’s own cut and editorial framing, is here: read it on Adnkronos. What follows is the complete version of my answers, including the parts that found no room in the article. My thanks to Roberta and the newsroom.

The transition towards an AI-guided education is gradual rather than sudden. How can the phases be mapped out, in time and in quality?

Three constraints define what is possible, and they move at different speeds.

The fastest is the adaptability of the students themselves. We can be certain they will use AI to the greatest extent available to them, at school or at home, and they will be the quickest to move from one phase to the next.

The second concerns teachers and how their attitude towards AI evolves. In the past they were slower to adopt tools like the computer, search engines or Wikipedia. Some will be quick, but most will be slow to accept AI and to adapt their teaching methodology accordingly.

The third, and slowest, is the institutional level: the programmes themselves will change, the ones teachers must follow and must cover within a given academic year.

Phase 1, by 2030: the crisis of the piece of paper

If AI can answer everything, why not simply opt for ignorance? What should education aim at, and what does it become?

Answers are useful only if you know how to ask the right questions. What education must provide is not facts and notions, but tools and methods: the ability to analyse problems, and an epistemological attitude capable of evaluating and critically analysing challenges.

What becomes of the value of credentials?

Credentials have always been a signal to the rest of society, an accelerator for evaluation and for building trust. A diploma, a degree, a doctorate presupposed a certain path, and the capacity to generate value at that level did not have to be verified too deeply. Today, though, the value of that piece of paper is debatable: on one side, what is learned in the traditional way has relatively less relevance than much of what is expected; on the other, there are other ways to demonstrate your capacity to create value, ones that do not depend on the assumptions we attach to a given title.

Many workplaces have already adapted to this change: instead of presenting themselves with a generic CV, people build a public or private repository of their work very efficiently, and show immediately, to the place where they want to apply, what they are able to do. It requires an investment from the candidate, but it is far more effective than a simple curriculum.

How do the concepts of merit and assessment change?

The purpose of education is not to be educated: the purpose is to generate value, and so the criteria of assessment must change accordingly. No longer verifying the ability to pass tests that demonstrate the acquisition of notions, but verifying that the student knows how to create something interesting and useful, appreciated by peers, by teachers, by families, by society; and then, once an adult, to take part in creating and delivering products and services for the various communities.

What counts is this: is it useful, does it have value? Art and the humanities are part of this too, not only engineering or computer science. They are as useful and as precious as the others. We must not construct an artificial contrast in a world of complete human beings, complete because well formed.

Phase 2, 2030-2040: human-machine interconnection, the school without walls

When we talk about a fluid school, based on decentralised ecosystems and on projects more than on classes and standardised programmes, what does that model actually look like in practice? How does a student spend a typical week?

Students have the opportunity to learn to work in groups, to form teams, to attract complementary skills and talents from their peers, and they design initiatives assessed against a growing set of criteria, according to their ability and their progress. This is where AI can make a great contribution: in designing the projects, in assessment, and in supporting teachers within an environment that, for a standard model of work, would turn out to be extremely complex.

What will the role of teachers be, and what becomes of school as a physical place?

Paradoxically, the role of teachers will become even more central: as mentors, guides, points of reference who inspire not through disciplinary authority, but by example, enthusiasm and creativity, pushing students to look for what they are good at and where they want to put in the effort to develop their skills.

And the place will be variable. School as a building may have a role in bringing larger groups together for periodic activities, once a week or a couple of times a month, but it will no longer be as central as before.

What kinds of study paths will develop in a decentralised, project-based model?

They will be highly personalised, and again this will be made possible by AI; they will incorporate very directly the new ways of thinking, the methods and the tools the student will have to understand and put into practice. This flexibility is somewhat the opposite of a fixed curriculum: it emerges dynamically.

And time? Will there still be lessons and timetables, and in what form?

Since adults too will have to keep learning in order to generate value and meaning in their lives, the segmentation into a first period devoted to learning, a second phase of work and a third of retirement will be replaced by a much more fluid way of existing.

A young person will have to learn much more, but will be able to do so faster and in a more targeted way, while keeping the possibility of continuing to explore; and something similar holds for adults as well. Learning will happen through projects. These projects will carry different names: they may resemble years of study at a school, but they will still be a project; or they may be called startups, a label we like to use today; or they may take on some new denomination. They will always include learning, applying what has been learned, updating methods, understanding and improving tools, and progressing together.

How do you handle sociality and isolation in the absence of fixed classes?

The social component must certainly be protected, supported, cultivated: it is a great element in a person’s maturing. Let us not forget, though, that large groups also feed negative behaviours: bullying, destructive spirals and bad examples can influence a young person just as much as being in a group develops their social abilities.

Are there already reference school models, even if only as early prototypes?

Yes: 42 in France, Astra School in Texas, Impara Digitale in Italy.

And universities, today the custodians of knowledge? With a widespread superintelligence, on what business model or social utility will they stand?

One role will be to bring people together in physical spaces.

Another could be almost a new form of entertainment: instead of concentrating on Hollywood’s traditional themes, the university offers highly engaging experiences based on science and discovery, or on the humanities and history, drawing people in precisely through these.

The research side will change as well: laboratories governed by robots will be able to run experiments designed anywhere in the world, not only by those physically present.

From Gen Z with the smartphone to the natives of the singularity: what characteristics will the new generation have?

I would sum it up in one word: neoteny, the retention of childlike traits into adulthood. Curiosity, a propensity for risk, a healthy disregard for authority and for received wisdom. Today, in the world we live in, this is evolutionarily advantageous: it lets people redefine who they are as they go, enter new communities, redesign their lives, convert their skills to new uses.

Phase 3, after 2045: the mind expanded onto the cloud

Could education become an instrument of control instead of emancipation? And how is that avoided?

Education is never neutral. It transfers not only knowledge and facts, but also values and attitudes. A sense of independence and a capacity for critical thinking are more likely to prepare someone for a life that is hard to control. This is why I am optimistic: the kind of education we aspire to for the future will not lead to control.

How do you avoid a cognitive feudalism, in which only a few can afford a higher grade of AI-enhanced education?

As I have already observed, you do not need many tools: you need intelligent tools, and some are extremely accessible, and becoming more so all the time. The price of AI is falling by more than 90% a year, and the threshold for providing support to teachers, students, families and institutions does not always require the most advanced AI: older and relatively cheaper versions do perfectly well.

Besides, the smartphone is the universal tool: every student has one, every teacher has one; it simply needs to be used proactively in learning. The recurring nightmare of exclusive access completely misreads the dynamics that turned what was a luxury good into something everybody owns. It happened with mobile phones, and it happens every time with a technology that goes from expensive and for the few to widespread, capable and affordable.

Governance, law and infrastructure

Is the European AI Act sufficient preparation for this change, or are further legislative measures needed?

The AI Act is the opposite of what is needed, because it blocks experimentation: it introduces very high compliance barriers and regulatory obstacles that only large companies can adopt and satisfy, effectively excluding startups and presuming that the answers are already known rather than there to be discovered. As a consequence, the educational opportunities of AI will be explored less widely in Europe than, for instance, in America.

On which legislative and curricular fronts must the State intervene to get liquid teaching under way?

Regional requirements that impose covering a fixed list of curriculum components leave far too little room for the initiative of students, families and teachers in choosing directions, themes, skills, tools and methods that are genuinely useful, especially in a liquid, project-based key. Making that room possible would unlock great improvements.

The risk, naturally, is that the lowest percentile of teachers ends up performing even worse; but here too, with the help of AI, they could improve their performance, which in turn could be monitored better.

And on the infrastructure front?

I love gadgets more than almost anyone I know, but betting on them is dangerous for two reasons.

The first: teachers have to learn to use them, and today, placed in a position of authority, they struggle to admit that students have mastered them better; they cannot afford to step down from the pedestal.

The second: these devices age and have to be replaced very frequently, and they represent a constant drain on the limited financial resources of schools.

The good news is that using AI requires nothing complicated or exotic: a smartphone is enough, pointed at a sheet of paper where a team is working and designing together, or brainstorming. There is also very affordable electronics, for example Arduino boards for open source hardware experimentation, which have a longer life than the latest generation of closed devices.

Implementation and context

How do you guide the teaching profession towards the imminent transition?

They must receive reassurance, compassion and support. They need to be reassured that they will not be assessed on every criterion while they are under the pressures of the new system. It must be clear that they too are learning, and that mistakes are inevitable, even necessary.

Compassion means knowing how to put ourselves in their shoes, literally. Families have to sign up to the programme as well: at home they must help the teachers, and the youngsters themselves must help them.

Support, finally, comes from AI: they can understand their own strengths and achieve a decisive improvement on their weak points. AI can eliminate the administrative work that weighs them down and make their explorations more focused.

What role will sport have?

Sport is an excellent example of how human achievement and competitiveness keep a role even when superior alternatives are readily available. More than a century has passed since cars started running faster than human beings, and this has not stopped runners from training and competing. We can take it as an example to extend to other fields, where we will recognise and accept the superiority of robotic or AI-driven solutions over human ones. We will not stop admiring and supporting human effort and excellence, rewarding both the champions and anyone who wants to commit to this behaviour that is so human and so socially positive.

At what phase is Italy positioned, looking at the actions of the Ministry of Education?

On this point I defer to Dianora Bardi, founder of Impara Digitale, who has a more direct and more current perspective on Italy’s positioning and on the Ministry’s actions.

Significant experiences in other countries: which are closest to the transition?

I prefer not to pronounce on which countries are closest to the transition: I do not have a sufficiently global perspective, and it is a piece of research that cannot be carried out in the time available. As concrete institutional references, 42 in France, Astra School in Texas and Impara Digitale in Italy remain valid.

The message to the future

If you could send a voice message into the future to the children who will be born on the exact day of the singularity, what would you tell them to study?

Cultivate your curiosity. Map your knowledge, your tools and your methods, and understand how and when they apply. Learn to decide when to replace them or extend them. And learn which are the useful questions to ask yourself at any moment, as you face the challenges of your life.

And to today’s university students?

Do not expect the degree to be the end of your commitment to building a path. The permanent job is not what one is expected to be, something society is obliged to give you and provide for you. Be proactive. Build concrete examples of your skills, throwing yourself with courage into as many projects as possible, and find new ways to be useful if the first ones you tried do not work.

And to today’s high school students?

Going to university and obtaining a degree was a concrete recipe for improving your life prospects, a recipe every family rightly pushes its children to fulfil, and it is a source of pride when they succeed.

Today a degree is not a guarantee. What counts more is your willingness to put yourself on the line in projects. If they succeed, it might mean not wanting to invest four or five years of your life only to start again from zero, but being catapulted earlier into an exciting world of opportunities. At the same time, make sure you know whether you are ready. Do not hesitate to enrol and begin; but then, if it is the right decision, leave your studies without regret.

Rereading these answers two months later, the part I still find hardest to get accepted is not the prediction about the dates, but the change of criterion: to stop asking a student whether they have learned, and to start asking what they have built. The three phases are a map, and maps get corrected. The question stays the same at every age, and it is the one worth practising from now on.

Interview by Roberta Lanzara, originally published by Adnkronos on 17 June 2026.