I have just read a remarkably silly article in a popular news website. The apparently well educated author has decided her seven year old has to study towards job opportunities, and has reacted to AI by forcing the poor child to study “coding” (which AIs can do) instead of drama (which they cannot).

The reasoning in the article is a very confused mix of what 16 year olds think they have to study to get a job (for some reason they are treated as authorities on this subject) and the fear that “AI” will wipe out all non-STEM jobs. The author is educated in the humanities (a History degree from Oxford), has a PhD, and is an author. Rather than drawing on her own life experience, or researching the subject, or even discussing it with people who have some knowledge of the issues, she takes her 16 year old daughter’s pronouncement “best steer clear of anything that leads to a yak yak degree” (humanities) as unarguable.

I can understand teenagers who face the prospect of student debt and high tuition fees feeling pressured to do vocational subjects. The author had freedom of not having to pay tuition fees and receiving a government grant towards living expenses. Something young people no longer have. However, an adult with some life experience should be able to to be able to assess things more calmly, and an educated person should be capable of critical thinking and questioning the received wisdom. A 16 year old might not understand that it is harder to get a job when the economic cycle is against you (we have an asset price bubble looking like its about to pop, and multiple wars), but someone who has lived a few decades has seen this all before.

Education is not vocational training, and does not have to be. Plenty of people who study the humanities get good jobs. There is a lot to be said for developing your mind by spending three years studying something you love.

It is even worse with regard to her seven year old. The child must start studying vocational skills now. Broader mental development is a waste of time. The worst part of this is an utterly deluded decision to force a seven year old to study only useful skills, sacrificing drama for “coding”.

I am very much in favour of kids learning about computers: it is empowering in a world in which computers are pervasive. Everything you do is connected to a computer. Everything from your car to your thermostat electricity meter computer controlled, and increasingly networked.

However, coding is something that LLMs (the current generation of AI) are very good at. They will not replace programmers because there is a lot more to programming than writing code. To quote Linux Torvalds “”AI is great, but AI is not changing programming.”. They will make coding alone a much less useful skill.

On the other hand can an AI act? I have yet to see one on stage. The decision has been made to force a child to study something AIs can do rather than something they cannot because of a feeling that only STEM is worth studying.

The article says “A heightened awareness of what is coming down the track has informed the way I bring up my youngest daughter … I don’t fork out for drama lessons. Instead, she has coding after school, and only financial restraint prevents me from putting her into a weekend Maths World session”.

So constant grind to from the age of seven based on speculation of what the future will bring. This is more about the fears of parents unable to cope with a changing world than what is actually in the best interests of children. It also says a lot about the short sighted policies of governments that fan these fears and enable the system of education that encourages this.