Megan Sullivan

Socrates, actually, in the Symposium, another one of his dialogues,

He makes fun of this idea of education.

He thinks it's like the metaphor is like trying to like pour all the liquid in your brain into the younger person's brain and just kind of transfer that knowledge.

And that is not the point of an education.

And in the era of artificial intelligence, if we're just thinking about transferring information efficiently, it is pretty clear that AI and technology can do that far more efficiently than any kind of in-person school education.

or university could.

So if that's the point of education, we are toast.

Luckily, that's not the point of education.

I think one of the most important things that we can do in an education, especially in the era of AI, is not think that we are transferring knowledge or that we are stamping them with our values.

But the point of an education is to give young people or anyone, frankly, who decides to pursue higher education knowledge

the space and coaching and opportunity and experiences that help them care for their own souls.

And this is really the heart of Greek virtue ethics, this idea that education is not transferring something, but it is really giving somebody the power

to wake up and care for their own souls, to ask their own questions, to think very seriously about what they're called to in the good life.

And this, I think, sounds dead poet society.

It sounds very idealistic.

But again, for 2,400 years in our civilization, this idea has animated some of the most

beautiful educational institutions that human beings have been able to create.

And I still believe in the deep magic.

I'm so grateful that people created those spaces and opportunities for me when I was a young person.

And I think the most important thing that we can do for this next generation, it's something that AI could never do.