On my walk around my neighborhood this morning, I marveled at the magic of smart shuffle on Spotify. I trusted my Fitbit to know I was walking, not sitting still. And Alexa must have been eavesdropping on my conversation at breakfast because a pop-up from Amazon served me a deal for exactly what I needed: new walking sneakers! 

As I watched birds bathing in fresh puddles on the road from last night’s storms and felt a cool breeze waft through the trees, I started thinking about AI. 

We’ve been living with machine learning for some time now, as we get recommendations on our streaming services, traffic updates on our phones, or chatbot support with our banks. And while those technological advancements have some concerns, they pale in comparison to the chatter that is occurring now around AI. 

Here at Peck, we are committed to educating students about the latest technology in a responsible way. It’s naive to think they won’t encounter these tools in high school, college, or later in life. As we lay a solid foundation of academic integrity, strong character, curiosity, and critical thinking, why not apply those concepts to the ethical use of AI? We want students to learn to work smarter, not harder. 

But we also don’t buy into the rhetoric that jobs won’t exist for our graduates in the future. And that’s because there are skills and qualities we are developing in our students that AI just can’t match. Here are three:

• Emotional intelligence: AI can’t help you in your interpersonal relationships. Despite the recent South Park episode where the boys use ChatGPT to automate texting with their girlfriends, AI can’t feed you lines in real time while in a meeting with your boss, out to lunch with a friend, or during a disagreement with a partner. At Peck, we believe it’s essential to teach students how to read situations, read people, and react accordingly. Leadership and social influence, which we would argue include emotional intelligence and empathy, is one of the top 10 skills the World Economic Forum says individuals will need to be successful by 2025. 

• Creativity: Despite the many new tools that create photographs or graphics using AI, nothing will ever compare to the human element of artistic expression. Our students learn not only the technical skills of making which could be easily replicated by AI technology, but they also learn how to communicate emotions, tell a story, and engage with art in a meaningful way. 

• Consideration of Others: A hallmark of a Peck education is our commitment to instilling in children a genuine consideration of and for others. In practice, that is as simple as holding the door open for someone or inviting a peer to join in at recess. But it also means thinking critically about social issues facing our world and vowing to be a part of the solution. Students may learn how to use their knowledge of coding to design robots to rescue victims of natural disasters or to design affordable and fast housing options to help fight homelessness. AI can’t do that.