The person who will build the future rebuilds civilization every day with an understanding that extends from knowledge to wisdom, from power to responsibility. The issue is not technology alone. People rebuild civilization every day not in buildings or in technology, but in their ways of thinking, in their relationships, and in their attitudes toward the powerful and the weak. The future of a society lies hidden in the character of the people it raises, even before laws that have yet to be written. That is why the question “Which technology will we have?” is not sufficient on its own.
The outcome changes with the hands. The same technology produces different results in different hands. Knowledge can be both healing and domination. Artificial intelligence can expand education or dull thought. Knowledge alone is not enough. In the age of information, the multiplication of knowledge does not make a person wise on its own; on the contrary, it leaves those who lack the ability to choose more vulnerable. While knowledge tells what is, wisdom asks what is to be done with it.
As machines surpass humans in access to information, it is argued that the person of the future must be one who “can choose” rather than one who “knows.” The person of the future is not merely one who knows. The question of which answer will make a person better remains open. Freedom is not an abundance of options. It is emphasized that freedom is the power to say no. While consumer culture sells desires to people, deeper freedom means “being able to ask why one wants what one wants.”
Why it matters
The text in question is not a news report but an opinion piece examining the concepts of education and freedom in the age of artificial intelligence; its significance therefore lies not in conveying a new development but in its contribution to an ongoing debate. The call to shift the goal of education from imparting knowledge to the ability to choose and question concerns a broad sphere of decisions, from school curricula to the habits families wish to instill in their children. Its definition of freedom as the power to say no in the face of an abundance of options places at its center the question of how consumer culture shapes individual desires. The piece does not say through which institutions and methods these principles will be put into practice. Thus, what an education model capable of turning knowledge into wisdom would look like is left as an open question on the reader’s agenda.