For decades, educationalists have debated the need for an evolving range of skills as necessary for success in the modern economy — creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, empathy, and more. It is these skills, not the memorisation of ‘mere facts’, that are demanded by industry and employers. School systems have taken note and now focus considerable time dedicated to building these supposedly generic and transferable skills.
The stakes of this debate have escalated in recent years. Now, not only is there widespread access to search engines like Google, but also generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, that have put information at the fingertips of almost anyone. Who needs to know facts anymore — the argument goes — when information can be efficiently retrieved?
But can we Google our way to being more knowledgeable? What are the implications for education systems that are fast adopting and utilising AI? Are skills like critical thinking truly generic and transferable? Is knowledge-building in education now redundant if technology can deliver information and analysis so efficiently?
