The person who uses AI will ultimately replace the one who doesn´t know how to use it

Discussion about AI often focuses on threats: will it take jobs, weaken learning, or make thinking passive? These questions are important, but not sufficient. We need a better understanding of how humans and AI can work together – and what this requires from learning and society.

Traditional thinking about AI emphasizes the machine’s ability to act independently and automate tasks that previously belonged to humans. However, this perspective is becoming outdated. The idea of hybrid intelligence emphasizes the interaction between humans and AI: AI structures information quickly, predicts, and suggests, while humans evaluate, interpret, and make decisions. The combination is more effective than the thinking capacity of either one alone. The question is not whether AI will replace humans, but what kinds of results humans and AI can achieve together. Hybrid intelligence is the intelligence of the future – the human role will not disappear, but it will become more strategic than before.

The growing use of AI in learning brings real risks. Learners can easily cut corners in their thinking and rely on ready-made answers from AI, which can lead to the illusion of learning: the answer looks good, but the learner’s own understanding does not develop. Learners need AI, but AI must not make learning passive. The task of education is to ensure that AI is used to strengthen thinking, not replace it. Self-regulated learning skills – the ability to plan, monitor, and evaluate one’s own learning – are key. They form the core of human thinking, which AI cannot replace but whose development it can support.

The world is facing unprecedented challenges in learning and competence development. The population is growing rapidly, an estimated 200 million children live in conflict areas, and population ageing is increasing the need for massive reskilling and upskilling. The solution cannot rely solely on traditional structures, such as teacher education and the building of new schools. The role of AI will be crucial: it will not replace the teacher, but it can complement and enhance teaching, free up teachers’ time, and make learning more accessible. AI is essential if we want to expand access to education fairly, sustainably, and effectively.

The role of AI in learning is growing, whether we want it to or not. That is why we must ask how we can build a society in which AI strengthens human thinking instead of making us subordinate to it and weaker in our thinking as users. People need technology to externalize parts of their thinking.

AI does not take anything essential away from humans – but it changes which skills are decisive. In the end, the issue is not whether AI replaces humans, but that the person who knows how to use AI will replace the one who cannot adapt to it. The future of learning is not either–or, but both–and: the shared intelligence formed by humans and machines is a tool for solving the great challenges of our time and for building learning skills that will carry far into the future.