“The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.”
—Robert Maynard Hutchins

Robert Maynard Hutchins wasn’t just making a statement about lifelong learning, he was offering an educational philosophy rooted in critical thinking and human flourishing. As president of the University of Chicago and a leading educational reformer in the 20th century, Hutchins championed a liberal arts education anchored in the “Great Books” tradition. He believed education should cultivate the intellect, foster critical thinking, responsible citizenship, and a deep engagement with the ideas that have shaped civilization. For Hutchins, learning wasn’t about vocational training or overspecialization. It was about preparing students to think, question, and ultimately, educate themselves for a lifetime.

That vision is more relevant, and more fragile, than ever in the age of artificial intelligence.

AI is rapidly transforming education, and the act of thinking itself. From personalized learning and agentic tutoring to AI-generated essays and real-time language translation, the tools now available to students would have seemed like science fiction a decade ago. But with this power comes a paradox. The same AI systems that can expand access to knowledge can also flood us with misinformation, deepfakes, and algorithmic bias. They can either sharpen or dull the very intellectual capacities Hutchins saw as the goal of education. How will reason change in the age of machines?

This moment demands clear-headedness. What should education be in an AI-saturated world? If we take Hutchins seriously, then AI’s role in education must not be to replace human reasoning but to support the development of it. And that means........

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