2025-09-20
43 分钟The Economist.
Can you remember the first time you saw someone pull out a smartphone to settle an argument at dinner?
I actually can't.
Once upon a time, you'd have to find a book, go to a library or just agree to disagree.
But over the past few decades, and particularly with the rise of smartphones,
Google has morphed from a search engine into almost an extension of our brains.
It's transformed our relationship with information.
Now imagine that shift happening not over decades, but almost overnight.
The impact is particularly acute in classrooms.
Students are suddenly handing in sophisticated essays, the grammar's perfect, the argument structured and confident.
And crucially, the work can be completed only minutes after being set.
The explosion of generative AI has been so quick and so comprehensive that schools and universities are now in crisis.
Increasingly, the question is not whether students should use AI, it's whether the education system as we know it can survive.
I'm Rosie Blaw and today on the weekend intelligence,
my former colleague turned PhD student Abby Bertex reports from an American campus
as she navigates the ethical mind field AI has helped to create.
It's a story ultimately about what education should be for.
How close you want the mic to my face?
Okay.
I'm in the office of Seth Fraser, a week before finals at UCSB, the University of California, Santa Barbara.