If AI Can Complete Coursework, What Is the Purpose of Effort?
Effort matters when it helps students become more capable.
AI can help students finish coursework faster, explain difficult ideas, or supply instant answers. But when a system does the thinking an assignment was designed to cultivate, completing the task no longer means developing the capability. Learning requires what cognitive scientists call desirable difficulties—retrieving ideas from memory, trying solutions, spotting mistakes, and revising an approach.
The real question isn’t whether students do work the hard way, but whether they have the chance to practice the reasoning that builds lasting understanding.
Working With AI Without Losing Professional Expertise
AI can improve a novice’s performance without building the expertise needed to work, evaluate, and recover independently. As AI takes on more entry-level tasks, educators and employers need to ask which capabilities people must retain—and how learning experiences can help them develop those capabilities before efficiency becomes the only goal.