A Modest Proposal for the Ubiquitous Use of AI in Education

In order to spare students the hardship of learning and educators the burden of judgment, I humbly offer a proposal both rational and overdue.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through our schools, or scroll through our school newsletters, when they behold classrooms filled with teachers, students, books, questions, mistakes, disagreements, and other inefficiencies traditionally associated with learning. These unfortunate remnants of an earlier age continue to demand time, judgment, attention, and—most scandalously—truth.

I think it is agreed by all parties that this state of affairs is no longer tolerable.

The modern consensus, formed after years of careful PowerPoint presentations, assures us that education need not involve knowledge, formation, or the patient cultivation of the intellect. What we require instead is the efficiency of personalized dashboards. Yet, despite the generous application of technology, we persist in clinging sentimentally to teachers, curricula, and the idea that students should actually understand something.

I shall therefore propose a remedy so obvious, so humane, and so perfectly aligned with our stated values that it is astonishing it has not yet been adopted universally: that we replace education altogether with Artificial Intelligence, and consider the matter settled.

Under this plan, all instruction shall be fully automated from birth. Upon entering the world, each child will be assigned a Personalized Learning Engine™, calibrated to his or her preferences and overall tolerance for challenge. Content will be dynamically adjusted downward whenever discomfort is detected. No child shall ever again experience the violence of difficulty.

Reading will be optional. Writing will be assisted. Thinking will be supported.

Teachers, due to their many obvious inefficiencies, may be repurposed as Learning Experience Monitors (LEMs), whose primary duties will include resetting passwords, circulating during Silent Clicking Time (SCT), and reassuring students that all answers are valid expressions of growth. Their authority, having long been a source of discomfort, will be fully eliminated.

Curriculum, that inflexible tyrant, shall likewise be retired. In its place we shall offer Adaptive Content Streams™ (ACSs), assembled by algorithms trained on whatever students found engaging last quarter. History may thus be liberated from chronology, mathematics from accuracy, and literature from authorship. Shakespeare, if included at all, will be summarized—very succinctly, advisably in 150 words or less.

Assessment, formerly a crude attempt to determine whether learning had occurred, will be replaced by Continuous Affirmation Metrics™ (CAMs), which measure progress by participation and sentiment. Grades—these are cruel instrument of hierarchy,, I am sure we can all agree—will be abolished and replaced with badges and encouraging notifications.

Truth itself, being notoriously resistant to personalization, will be quietly deprecated.

The benefits of this proposal are numerous.

First, it will finally resolve the tedious debate over the purpose of education. Since AI has no telos, education will no longer need one. Schools may proceed confidently without asking what sort of human beings they are forming, a question that has long caused unnecessary philosophical strain.

Second, equity will at last be achieved. (It’s about time, yes?) By ensuring that no student is held to a standard not already met, all outcomes will be equal. Excellence will be scaled down to accessibility, exactly where it belongs.

Third, the problem of “knowledge gaps” will be eliminated entirely. Students cannot lack what is no longer required.

Fourth, the financial savings will be considerable. While AI subscriptions will be expensive and perpetual, they will be framed as investments. Buildings may be retained for branding purposes, though learning itself may occur anywhere there is Wi-Fi and a sense of belonging.

Fifth, and most importantly, education will at last be future-ready. Since no one knows what the future holds, our students will be perfectly prepared for it by knowing very little, very flexibly.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion as to reject any offer proposed by wise men which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. If someone can show me how education might still involve truth, discipline, beauty, or wisdom—but, of course, without inconvenience or the possibility of failure—I shall willingly embrace it.

But as to my own part, no longer having any children to submit to this system, and having already received an education sufficiently burdensome to include knowledge, I declare with the utmost humility that this proposal is made with the purest zeal for the public good.

And I shall conclude with this assurance: once education has been fully automated and liberated from meaning, we will finally be able to say that learning has never been better.

If you’ve read this far, without understanding that this article is Swiftian parody, then I invite you to scroll up and re-read through your ironic spectacles. And then go read my new book, The Subversive Art of a Classical Education, now available on sale at Amazon.com and other outlets!

Michael S. Rose, a leader in the classical education movement, is author of The Subversive Art of a Classical Education (Regnery, 2026).