Rick Hess: Howard, I’ve contended that AI doesn’t change the knowledge students need to learn. You disagree. I want to get into your take, but let’s start with a bit of context. When did you first start thinking about what AI means for education?
Howard Gardner: My interest in AI was sparked by an unexpected connection with Anthea Roberts, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, who was intrigued by my describing myself as having a “synthesizing mind.” We both love absorbing huge amounts of information and synthesizing it. Anthea discovered how adeptly AI could assist with synthesizing and showed me. With her guidance, my research team began using AI to code lengthy interviews with college students and alums. Watching AI do in moments what takes a human many hours got me thinking about its educational implications.
Hess: You may be most famous for your work developing the theory of multiple intelligences. I imagine you approach AI through that lens. So, how do the insights from that work inform your thinking on AI?
Gardner: When I first presented my ideas on multiple intelligences 45 years ago, it never occurred to me to consider the relation between human and computational cognition. I was simply trying to pluralize the traditional view of intelligence as a single IQ score. But AI systems have since demonstrated remarkable cognitive capacities. In 2024, my colleagues and I wrote an essay titled “Who Owns Intelligence?” We discussed animal, plant, and artificial intelligence. Scholars, including educators, must now reflect on how these forms of intelligence relate to one another.
Hess: You’ve suggested that AI is likely to be so effective at cognitive tasks—what you term “the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, and the creative mind”—that whether humans continue to do them “will be optional.” That’s a heck of a statement. Can you unpack it?
Gardner: In Five Minds for the Future, published over two decades ago, I called for cultivating those three forms of cognition. I now believe AI will handle them so well that pursuing them will become optional for our species. Of course, anyone who wants to master a discipline, or to synthesize or create, has my complete respect and admiration. In that same book, I also called for cultivating the “respectful mind” and the “ethical mind.” I think those both need to stay distinctly human.
Hess: I’m going to put a pin in my skepticism for the moment, as I want to be sure to let you play this out. If cognitive tasks were offloaded to AI, what would that mean for education?
Gardner: In the scenario that I envision, individuals can and should pursue their interests throughout their lives, whether that’s cooking or ancient history. It won’t matter if AI can do it faster or better than us. We will use our own minds because it brings pleasure to us and to others. Perhaps we’ll even discover or create new knowledge, entities, or experiences beyond AI’s reach—maybe even poetry or stories no AI could write. But that will only happen if individuals are intrinsically motivated to stretch their abilities.
Hess: A Harvard publication quoted you as saying that by 2050, due to advances in AI, students won’t need more than a few years of schooling in “reading, ’riting, ’rithmetic, and a little bit of coding.” You’ve made clear to me that your take is more nuanced than that. How much schooling do you think children will actually need in the age of AI?
Gardner: Every child should still master reading, writing, math, and basic coding, learning alongside peers and skilled educators in a school-like setting. But around age 10, once the “3 Rs” are in hand, students should be free to pursue their own interests with the help of AI, peers, and appropriate coaches. Well-designed AI, I believe, will outperform even the most gifted instructor. Education should continue but not by corralling young people in classrooms for a dozen years to explore the same issues the same way, especially when many could learn more effectively on their own with AI.
Hess: That’s a lot to digest. Can you provide a sense of what that might look like in practice?
