WRITING COMPOSITION- ENG 139W

How Education Must Change

The central thesis in Chapter 9: “How Education Must Change” is that, as AI develops, the value of the thinking skills and STEM competencies that the current educational system places an undue emphasis on is diminishing. Roland T. Rust and Ming-Hui Huang argue that education should emphasize “feeling skills” like empathy, emotional intelligence, communication, and interpersonal relationships instead of highlighting academic content. To bolster this claim, the authors begins by describing how education historically concentrated on physical skills during the Physical Economy, then changed to thinking skills with the emergence of the Thinking Economy and the automation of physical labor. It make us understand that education must now shift once more to emphasize the emotional abilities that AI presently lacks, as AI automates tasks requiring analytical thought needed for continuing and retraining education.

The authors give various instances to support their claim that thinking abilities are becoming less valuable. For instance, AI can perform better than humans in cognitive tasks like diagnosing medical conditions and playing chess. In this case, students who concentrate on honing the same abilities as artificial intelligence are “beating their heads against a brick wall” (Rust & Huang 95). Meaning that, they should focus on thinking skills that AI is yet to achieve but this requires human embrace a new kind of education compared to the past.  Although there is currently a scarcity of STEM workers, the authors contend that the value of these skills will decrease as AI develops. According to tech giants like Google, soft skills are becoming more important than STEM skills. Pure technical skills are no longer sufficient for success; the stereotypical socially awkward “Silicon Valley geek” was used as a good example. Soft skill retraining will be required for workers who are ready to compete successfully and be adept interpersonally in the Feeling Economy. The authors contend that these “feeling skills” centered on people will still be valuable even when AI gets smarter than people in terms of doing routine tasks accurately and faster.

Education must shift its focus to include more interpersonal skills and feeling skills in the context of the Feeling Economy. These skills may include communication, interpersonal relationships, empathy, emotional intelligence, coaching, and leadership. The time until AI can effectively compete with humans in these domains is probably several decades away. Everything would be very different in a Feeling Economy classroom because people will be able to interact and become well rounded. Many college students now receive more instruction in the Feeling Economy from their sororities, associations, and residences than from their classes. It make us believe that students interacting with one another is crucial because it help them build interpersonal skills and most importantly improve their interpersonal relationships. To transform a continuing education, Roland and Ming suggest a more hands-on, cooperative learning that emphasizes thinking skills but fosters interpersonal skills and feeling skills such as group projects, presentations, and conversations that in turn impart empathy, leadership, and communication skills. 

Works Cited Rust, Roland T., and Huang, M.H. “Chapter 9: How Education Must Change.” The Feeling Economy: How Artificial Intelligence Is Creating the