A Simple "5 Step Plan" to Keeping Up with AI Advances and Preparing for AGI.

Almost every day I see a social media post that references a new development in AI and asks how people, especially educators, can possibly keep up.

I don’t think it’s that hard, so I created a “5 Step Self-Help AI Plan.”

Step 1. Believe what people tell you, including the context. Many individuals lament the “AI hype,” and there is undoubtedly some hype related to the existing capabilities of AI systems and, perhaps, how quickly gains will come. But there really isn’t much window on the eventual outcome: Computers will have human+ level intelligence (AGI), generally speaking. Even critics of large language models such as Gary Marcus and Yann LeCun believe that will happen in 5-10 (LeCun)/20 (Marcus) and possibly sooner. They all advise that we should prepare for it to possibly be sooner, not dismiss it because it is hype.

Step 2. Think about your situation. AI impacts different industries in different ways. It’s already super-human persuasive but it sucks at plumbing. It’s really good at translating. So, do you really want to plan a career as a marketer or translator? If so, how do you account for AI?

In education, this is undoubtedly challenging, as it’s already probably a superhuman student. There have been plenty of videos circulating lately about how AI agents can be told to enter into asynchronous course spaces and complete all the work with nearly perfection. Students can simply drag and drop assignments into systems such as You.com and the AI will read the instructions and carry out all the steps needed to complete the assignments.

What does this mean for education? The answer seems rather obvious — asynchronous courses are probably DOA and teachers and professors need to switch to more performance-based assessment such as debate and PBL.

Can they just keep giving the current assignments and hope for the best? Sure, but they shouldn’t complain when they don’t have jobs.

Step 3. Take time to learn. Many lament that their (educational) institutions haven’t provided enough faculty support and training for AI. I agree; I’m even shocked how little attention many administrators have paid to this.

But there is also reality. If educators want to continue to be relevant in an AI world, and maybe even survive, they are going to have to learn about AI.

There are things that are more challenging for people than having to learn about AI while they are employed. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are losing their jobs with no warning and no retraining. People are being deported. The number of refugees increases every day. Comparatively, spending a little bit of time, and even a little bit of one’s own scarce money, to learn about AI and think about how you can stay relevant in the world is, comparatively, less daunting.

We tell our students to become “lifelong learners.” We need to practice what we preach.

Step 4. Figure out your strengths in relation to AI. A lot of the early thinking in AI was about makes us “uniquely” human and how we, and our students, could compete with AI. While there may be some areas where our capabilities exceed AI, we really need accept the reality that AI will be able to do all or nearly all that we can do as well or better than us. Given that reality, how are we going to work with and relate to AI?

Step 5. Participate. There isn’t a textbook with all (or any) of the answers. You won’t make 100K+ if you can pass a test from a course called “How to Succeed in the AI World.” Waiting for someone else to hand you a perfect approach is a losing strategy.

Educators, especially, need to be in the room where decisions about AI in learning are happening. That means experimenting, sharing successes and failures, and advocating for policies that reflect the realities of the fact that computers are very intelligent.

And don’t just learn about AI. Use it, challenge it, question it, and contribute to the conversations that are shaping its role in education and beyond.

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