EDUCATION

Encourage pupils to use AI in schoolwork, says tech expert

Professor argues education should be about getting children to think, not traditional essays and rote learning
Already 41 per cent of secondary school pupils use artificial intelligence to help write English essays, according to a recent study
Already 41 per cent of secondary school pupils use artificial intelligence to help write English essays, according to a recent study
ALAMY

Children should be tested on how best they can use AI to write essays and answer questions, not on how they can do those tasks themselves, a global computer science expert and university head says.

Professor Yike Guo, a professor of computing science and the provost of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, says the traditional school essay will be consigned to history.

Instead, children should learn how to prompt AI to write a good essay for them, one that is better than the work produced by their classmates with the help of AI.

Guo, an expert in AI who was at Imperial College London for 34 years, said children no longer needed to memorise facts. Exams and tests that assess rote learning need