The Human Advantage: A Reality Check on AI in Education
Education sociologist Neil Selwyn has spent decades doing something most of us do not do enough of when shiny new tech arrives: slowing down, asking who benefits, and naming the tradeoffs out loud.
So before we rush into “AI-proofing” students, let’s get honest about what is happening. Employers absolutely expect AI to reshape work. In the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, 40% of surveyed employers said they anticipate reducing their workforce where AI can automate tasks, and the report predicts substantial churn in skills and roles through 2030.
At the same time, Selwyn would warn us about the loudest narratives. “AI will replace everyone” makes for clickable headlines. The reality is more uneven: some tasks are being automated, some jobs are being redesigned, and plenty of organizations are using “AI” language as part of broader cost cutting and restructuring.
If you are a student or parent, here is the key takeaway: the safest plan is not trying to predict the one perfect future job. The safest plan is building durable human capabilities that become more valuable as AI gets cheaper and more common.
Why AI Changes the Game (and Why It Still Needs Humans)
Large language models do not “understand” the world the way humans do. They are powerful pattern machines that generate plausible language. That can be incredibly useful, and also risky.
Selwyn’s work emphasizes that these systems can be brittle, biased, and overly confident, and that education should not be reduced to whatever can be captured as data and optimized at scale.
Even business leaders who are excited about generative AI still warn about hallucinations, meaning outputs that sound confident but are factually wrong. That combination, high usefulness plus occasional wrongness plus high confidence, is exactly why judgment becomes the advantage.
The Skills That Still Matter When AI Is Everywhere
Deep Reading and Writing: The Ability to Think in Language
In a world flooded with auto-generated text, what stands out is real authorship: a student who can read something dense, form a view, and express it clearly in their own voice.
A practical clarification: the SAT discontinued its optional essay after the June 2021 administration. So “timed writing” now shows up more through schoolwork, classroom essays, AP-style writing, and other proctored contexts.
Numeracy and Data Sense: The Ability to Sanity-Check Reality
AI can generate charts, dashboards, and summaries. What it cannot do for you is guarantee the underlying numbers make sense, or decide what they imply.
Students who are comfortable with math, statistics, and basic data reasoning are harder to mislead and better equipped for almost any major or career.
Truth-Seeking and Critical Thinking: The Habit of Not Being Fooled
This is the skill that keeps AI from becoming an expensive way to be confidently wrong.
It is source evaluation, argument testing, and asking “what would change my mind?” It is also recognizing when a tool is guessing, and knowing when to slow down and verify.
Metacognition: Learning How to Learn
When courses get harder, the winners are not the students who never struggle. They are the students who can diagnose why they are struggling and change strategies quickly.
This is future-proof because the tools and expectations will keep changing.
Executive Function: Focus, Planning, Follow-Through
Selwyn would say technology often promises to “fix” human messiness. It rarely does.
Reminders do not create discipline. Automation does not create ownership. The student who can manage attention, start tasks, and finish well becomes the reliable one in college and in work.
Communication, Rhetoric, and Leadership
AI can help you draft a message. It cannot be you in the room.
The advantage is the ability to explain ideas, listen well, persuade ethically, run meetings, and lead teams.
Creativity and Taste: Knowing What “Good” Looks Like
When average output becomes cheap, discernment becomes rare.
Taste is choosing the right idea, the right example, and the right tone for the audience. It is also the ability to make something that feels alive, not generic.
Integrity and Character: Doing Real Work in a Shortcut Culture
Colleges are paying closer attention to AI misuse, and some institutions explicitly frame submitting AI-generated substantive content as application fraud.
Integrity is more than just “don’t cheat.” It is being the kind of person others can trust with responsibility, relationships, and high-stakes decisions.
Interpersonal Skills and Empathy: Being Great to Work With
College and careers are social systems.
The student who can collaborate, handle conflict, read the room, and build trust will get more opportunities and better mentorship.
Collaboration and Group Problem-Solving
Almost every meaningful challenge is solved by teams.
The rare student is the one who can bring structure to a group, raise the quality of thinking, and deliver without drama.
A Note on College Admissions Right Now
This is getting tricky in both directions. Students are warned not to outsource their voice to AI, while colleges are simultaneously experimenting with AI tools to help process applications.
That tension makes one thing even more important: students who can produce real, human work consistently, and speak about it clearly, will stand out.
What My Workshop Is Designed to Do
I’m building a workshop for students and parents that teaches these durable skills in a practical way, including how to use AI ethically as a learning tool without surrendering judgment, voice, or integrity.
The goal is confidence, not fear. Students should leave with a clear plan for how to train these skills the same way you train a sport or an instrument, through reps, feedback, and real work.
If you have thoughts, want your student to attend, or want to bring this workshop to a school or group, email me at jd.hopper@purposetutoring.com. If you are looking for math tutoring or college admissions support in Charlotte, you can learn more and book directly here.
