Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I think we have to ask this not only of students but of people generally. The framing for education, though, is to pose this as opposed to more oft-cited concerns about cheating. "There's a much deeper wound here that we're only now beginning to see. When a machine can now mimic the work of a human being, many of us, especially students, must be asking what the point is anymore." Of course, this is being written from the perspective, I guess, of someone whose work has always mattered. But a lot of people look at the world of work generally, with or without AI support, and say "what's the point?" For a lot of people, if they didn't have to earn a paycheque, they wouldn't be doing this work at all. 

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 13, 2026 11:41 a.m.

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