Beyond pattern matching: Why education must build whole human intelligence
Beyond pattern matching: Why education must build whole human intelligence
Professor Rose Luckin leads Educate Ventures Research (EVR) and is Professor Emerita at University College London (UCL). She is a member of the Cambridge University Press & Assessment Partnership for Education Advisory Board. Here, she shares her thoughts on shaping education so we better prepare learners for the future.
We are at a fascinating inflection point in education. AI can now write essays, solve maths problems, and generate lesson plans in seconds. So naturally, the question many people are asking is: "What should we still teach?"
But I think we are asking the wrong question. The real question is: "What kind of intelligence do we want to nurture alongside AI?"
The brain in a vat problem
Here is a thought experiment that helps clarify what makes human intelligence irreplaceable. Imagine you have read every book ever written, watched every film, listened to every conversation. You have access to all the information that exists. But you have never actually done anything. You have never walked on frost-crisp grass, never felt fear tighten in your stomach, never had to navigate a crowded market or comfort a distressed child.
This is essentially what AI is: a ‘brain in a vat’, processing patterns without lived experience.
As Cambridge's report "Humans at the heart of education" rightly emphasises, AI uses patterns in text. But humans use memories stored in muscle, skin and bone. Experience leaves physical and emotional traces that even the best pattern-matching cannot fabricate. This is not a temporary limitation of current AI systems; it is a fundamental characteristic of how they work.
And this lived experience matters profoundly for education.
What we risk losing
My research over the past three decades has focused on how AI can enhance human learning. But increasingly, I am seeing concerning trends that suggest we might be using AI in ways that actually diminish human intelligence rather than enhance it.
Consider what we are risking: Students can use AI to write essays without grappling with structuring arguments themselves. They can offload calculations without understanding the mathematical relationships involved. They accept AI-generated answers without developing the critical thinking to evaluate whether those answers make sense.
We are creating "AI-assisted incompetence" a generation that can operate tools brilliantly but whose own thinking capabilities have atrophied.
Cambridge’s research identifies exactly the capabilities we should be nurturing instead: communication, critical thinking, self-management, empathy. But this is also a challenge: these are among the hardest things to teach and learn. As this Cambridge report notes, self-management, though recognised as essential, is reported to be one of the most difficult skills to develop.
Why local context matters more than ever
One of the most important insights in the Cambridge report is that strong education systems start locally. They reflect cultural values, linguistic diversity, and national priorities while preparing learners to contribute globally.
This matters even more in an AI age. Many large language models are trained with a very high proportion of English text, which is concerning because only a small fraction of the world’s population speaks English as their first language. That automatically builds bias into systems.
When education systems celebrate and nurture what makes their communities distinctive, they are not being parochial. Rather, they are providing learners with the contextual understanding and cultural know how that AI simply cannot replicate.
This grounding in local reality, local languages, local ways of knowing, becomes the foundation for authentic global collaboration. AI produces uniformity by design. Human strength comes from our differences.
The knowledge-skills integration challenge
There is a tempting argument that with AI providing information at our fingertips, we should focus purely on skills rather than knowledge. But when students offload knowledge entirely to AI, they lose the rich network of connections that enable creative thinking, ethical reasoning, and wise decision-making. Knowledge becomes meaningful when it is integrated with experience, values, and the ability to apply it appropriately in context.
What education for whole-person development looks like
First, it means recognising the full spectrum of human capability. Most education systems focus almost exclusively on academic intelligence. But the uniquely human capabilities that allow us to thrive alongside AI; empathy, ethical reasoning, creative problem-solving, self-awareness, draw on a much wider repertoire of intelligent behaviours.
Second, it means being strategic about technology integration. Technology should enhance human capability, not replace it. When we use AI to automate away all the cognitive effort, we rob learners of the opportunity to develop sophisticated thinking. But when we use it thoughtfully, say, to provide personalised feedback that helps students understand their own learning patterns, then we can actually accelerate human intelligence development.
Third, it means focusing on learning mastery. This goes beyond traditional critical thinking. It is about helping learners understand how they learn, when they are being manipulated by information, why they think the way they do. These metacognitive and self-effective capabilities become ever more vital when AI can generate plausible-sounding content that may or may not be accurate, appropriate, or ethical.
The equity imperative
There is a real risk that "future-readiness" becomes a privilege of well-resourced schools while others struggle with basic access. Some children will learn from skilled teachers using AI to enhance learning. Others will rely on digital platforms with little human guidance.
This is precisely why the Cambridge report's emphasis on putting humans at the heart is so important. Education transformation is not about replacing teachers with technology. It is about empowering teachers to do what only humans can do: build relationships, understand individual needs, foster curiosity, model ethical thinking.
The choice before us
We stand at a genuine choice point. We can allow AI to diminish human intelligence by offloading more and more cognitive work to machines. Or we can use this moment as a catalyst to develop more sophisticated human capabilities.
The nations that embed whole-person development at the heart of education reform will progress at pace; reaping the benefits of emerging technology while seeing students reach their full potential.
But this requires courage. Courage to resist the siren call of efficiency over depth. Courage to invest in developing human capabilities even when they are difficult to teach and measure. Courage to put relationships and human connection at the centre even when technology seems to offer shortcuts.
The question is not whether AI can replace certain aspects of what we do. It is whether we are willing to do the harder work of nurturing what makes us irreplaceably human.
What do you think?
Add your thoughts to the discussion and help prompt the future of education.
Add your thoughts to the discussion and help prompt the future of education.
