Margit Sutrop: If AI provides all the answers, what should schools still teach?

Philosopher and ethicist Margit Sutrop reflects on the growing presence of artificial intelligence in Estonian schools and classrooms. She argues that AI is already embedded in students' phones, homework, and teaching materials, and that its impact depends entirely on how it is used. The piece raises fundamental questions about the future purpose of education in the age of AI.

Artificial intelligence has already entered the classroom — not as a future prospect, but as a present reality. It lives in students' smartphones, shapes the homework they submit, sits on teachers' desks, and is woven into the learning materials used every day. The question, writes philosopher and ethicist Margit Sutrop, is no longer whether AI belongs in school, but what we intend to do with it.

A tool that answers everything

For generations, the core purpose of schooling has been to transmit knowledge: facts, methods, skills that students would need to navigate the world. But when a student can ask an AI system any question and receive a credible, well-structured answer within seconds, the traditional model begins to crack. Why memorise the dates of historical events if the machine can recall them instantly? Why practise essay structure if a language model can produce a polished draft on demand?

Sutrop argues that the answer to these questions is not simply to ban the tools or to embrace them uncritically. The challenge is far more profound: educators and society must rethink what learning is actually for. If AI can handle the retrieval and synthesis of existing knowledge, then schools must focus on what machines cannot yet replicate — critical thinking, ethical reasoning, creativity, and the ability to ask meaningful questions in the first place.

What machines still cannot teach

This is not a call for technophobia. Sutrop acknowledges that AI, used thoughtfully, can be a powerful ally in education — personalising learning, freeing teachers from administrative burdens, and making knowledge more accessible. But the passive consumption of AI-generated content carries its own risks: students who never wrestle with difficult problems may never develop the intellectual resilience those problems are meant to build.

The deeper concern is one of values and purpose. Education has always been about more than information transfer — it is about forming people who can think independently, act responsibly, and engage meaningfully with a complex world. If AI quietly takes over the parts of schooling that require effort and struggle, something essential may be lost before anyone notices it is gone. Sutrop's question hangs in the air as a challenge for every teacher, parent, and policymaker: when the machine gives all the answers, what exactly is the school still teaching?