Artificial intelligence is changing the world. It’s transforming the workplace for many, reshaping how we consume media, and altering the way we communicate. Entire fields and industries are being disrupted and, in some cases, reinvented. Economies around the globe are poised to be reordered because of it. Forward-looking educators are adopting it to instruct students.

However, artificial intelligence-driven education is totally antithetical to the approach of Royal Fireworks Online Learning. We believe that education is not something a child gets but rather a series of relationships between the child and the material. In our print and digital curricula, we try to facilitate that relationship every way we can. In our online school, we offer students mentors who are experts in their fields, and we offer them the opportunity to work with those mentors year after year. We believe fervently in the importance of that human interaction, in the model of success that the mentors represent, and in the positive interaction that can develop between student and instructor. It is crucial that our students are confident that their mentors know them as individuals, recognize each individual as an individual, and respond to each individual’s developing participation in the relationship to the material.

Artificial intelligence may be able to lay out a syllabus for a course, but it can never convey the enthusiasm and joy that experts feel for their fields and that are such an essential part of the mentor relationship. All learning has emotional content; we know this from brain scans. Mentors who are experts are able to recognize it in their students and respond to it by shaping the learning in ways that maximize the joy.

Artificial intelligence has another limitation that is even more important than the ability to amplify joy, and that is in the questioning of students’ assumptions and beliefs. The computer algorithms of our age are designed to give people more of what they seem to like. What our students do not need is an endless loop of feel-good material. They need to be challenged to examine their assumptions and question their beliefs.

Another promise of AI is that it can enable student-directed learning. But student-directed learning has limitations. We believe that there is a body of knowledge that students should have and that they need the guidance of experts to direct them to it. We are not much interested in the ability to pass a true/false or multiple-choice test on any particular aspect of that body of knowledge. We are much more interested in students’ understanding and in their ability to articulate their understanding.

Finally, and most importantly, experts in many different fields concerned with longevity, mental health, and life satisfaction all tell us that a crucial factor is the strength and richness of one’s relationships as an adult. Their focus is on relationships with other human beings. Relationships are a performance art requiring imagination, skill, self-control, reflection, empathy, sensitivity, and much else. One can get better at them throughout one’s life. The time to start learning about them is when one is young. And a relationship with an expert in an area of interest is an important point early in that journey. Artificial intelligence can never offer that; Royal Fireworks Online Learning can.

To learn more and to enroll in any of our expert-led online courses, visit the Online Learning page today. As always, feel free to call us at (845) 726-4444 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, for guidance on course selection or registration. We’re happy to have you join us!