By Rebeca Mesquita, University of Brasília

Throughout my undergraduate years, it has been common to encounter questions from classmates regarding the university’s effectiveness in placing students into the job market. These inquiries have always brought me a series of concerns about the institution’s role in a student’s formation, leading me to a fundamental question: why do we study?

This same question was sparked in me while watching the launch of the Artificial Intelligence Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean. On that occasion, it was mentioned that the intensive use of AI has accelerated a “silent crisis in education,” evidenced by worrying levels of school dropout and evidence that students are learning less and less. As a result, it is possible that in the coming years, many jobs will become obsolete while qualified labor will be scarce. However, the greater risk lies in the cognitive impacts: not only the loss of existing capabilities but the risk of never being able to develop them in students due to AI dependency.

Much is discussed about the integration of AI in education. While many long for the benefits of this union, others point out the structural problems that may arise. Neil Selwyn warns that implementing technology in teaching often represents a surrender to the interests of Big Techs: instead of technology being shaped to serve human needs, people and educational institutions are adapting to it. And if Foucault criticized the school for representing a form of social control based on rigid hierarchies, Selwyn reinforces that AI will likely strengthen these existing power systems with even more monitoring.

Thus, facing a future where artificial intelligence brings so many uncertainties to education and work, how can we convince students to undergo the learning process if the utilitarian logic is so valued by both the market (obsessed with productivity) and educational institutions (focused on metrics)? It is hard to sustain enthusiasm in knowledge acquisition when the results are more valued than the act of thinking itself.

Returning to classical thought, Plato believed that paideia is, essentially, formation for liberation from ignorance. The logic of current educational institutions, which reduce education to instruction and numerical data, must be reconsidered. In the current scenario, it is necessary to give new meaning to education and return to what should be the priority: a liberating formation that does not merely seek to insert the individual into the market, but allows them to explore and broaden their perception of the world. I strongly believe that education must return to its ontological base and encourage critical thinking, similar to what Kant defines as the achievement of enlightenment.

With all this in view, I believe that we, university students, must have as our main motivation the construction of autonomy so that we can resist the utilitarian logic that reduces knowledge to labor. For this, an open, plural education is urgent, one capable of projecting us into a collective future, rather than just individual success.