The Human Advantage

The Human Advantage is an excerpt from my upcoming book, The Einstein Mindset. Enjoy it! Sign up here, and I will keep you informed about the publication. Copyright Erika Twani.

“Self-education [learning autonomy] is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing.” - Isaac Asimov

I wrote my first book, Becoming Einstein’s Teacher, because I couldn’t find an educational resource that offered a straightforward method for fostering students’ agency. I shared a six-step learning process to achieve this. This process emerged from 15 years of research, development, and practice. We refer to it as Relational Learning, a structured pedagogical approach to developing students’ consciousness by cultivating learning autonomy and, thereby, human agency.

Over the years, we have seen that it is possible to scale Relational Learning regardless of community context: rural or urban, virtual or homeschooling, with or without technology, with few or abundant resources, this or that curriculum, low or high income, and different cultures. We witnessed students of all backgrounds embrace the learning process when teachers believed in them.

After publishing the book, giving a TEDx Talk, and witnessing how Relational Learning could change students’ and teachers’ lives for the better through many heart-touching stories, I felt a sense of fulfillment and, at the same time, a sense of responsibility. I knew I had to continue researching and developing this student-agency system to make learning in the AI Era even easier for the entire learning community.

In this book, I’ve simplified technological advancements so that educators, parents, and educational leaders can understand what is coming and how technology will affect our lives and students’ lives.

If you feel that the “why” and the “what” are almost philosophical while reading this book, you are right. Philosophy may become the most important profession in the 21st century, as we seek answers to questions of morality and free will, explore humanity’s next level, and examine ethical questions in the AI Era. It is time to tap into our human skills. Don’t worry, though; I will also present the “how,” a process for developing the learning autonomy and adaptability required in our new reality.

You will be inspired by stories from students, teachers, leaders, and parents who dared to believe that children can develop learning autonomy from an early age. These stories are a result of the outstanding work my team at Learning One to One has done over the decades. They will help you to picture the possibilities in your school. I hope they find their way into your heart and inspire your path toward learning transformation, fostering with your students the human skills they need to succeed in life in the AI Era. I am confident that, once you read this book, you will be able to use the system I present to develop these skills in your students, and I am grateful for that.

So, what is next? While there are many self-proclaimed AI-in-education experts out there delivering the latest EdTech solutions or providing professional development on using those tools effectively, I want to highlight the greatness of humankind in this book. What do we have that AI doesn’t? Among many things, AI doesn’t possess consciousness, and it will never have it. That’s our human advantage, and we must explore it more deeply.

No matter how advanced it is, AI operates through computation: algorithms, data, and probabilities. Human consciousness, on the other hand, is a subjective experience shaped by emotions, senses, memory, embodiment, and awareness of self in time. It includes intuition, paradox, and meaning-making, none of which can be fully captured by code. AI may one day mimic the behaviors of consciousness, but true human consciousness remains a uniquely human frontier. It gives us awareness of our human capabilities and how to use them to benefit humanity.

Even if AI convincingly simulates consciousness one day—responding with empathy, reflecting on its “thoughts,” or passing every test we throw at it—that’s not the same as having consciousness. It’s like watching a movie of a sunset versus standing on a cliff and experiencing the sunset firsthand. David J. Chalmers, an Australian philosopher and New York University professor, explained the “hard problem of consciousness”: how brain activity gives rise to subjective experience. Since this remains unsolved for humans, attributing it to machines puts us in the realm of science fiction rather than scientific reality.

My exploration of human consciousness led me to gather resources and connect with people who awakened this understanding. It reflects the idea from the proverb, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” This book acts as a vessel for sharing knowledge designed to inspire you to challenge and update traditional learning methods. You'll sense whether this book is right for you and whether it's the right moment to read it because your heart and soul are eager to do more, discover more, and uplift the world through children’s education. As Joe Dispenza states, “Knowledge precedes the experience.” In essence, understanding a concept is necessary before truly experiencing it. This book is meant to provide you with that knowledge.

‍As students exercise their conscious awareness to learn, their life experiences will be magnificent. If they are instead passive learners, as many of them are today, their consciousness will remain at lower levels, resulting in an average life experience.

It is our birthright to live life to the fullest because we are all born with consciousness. It is our right to realize our potential and utilize the tools we have at our disposal as human beings: awareness and the capacity to learn. Learning autonomy is more relevant than ever, as each child can become an Einstein in their own way.

Einstein developed a remarkable ability to translate complex scientific concepts into simple, relatable examples that ordinary people could understand. But there was a moment when he got stuck. Einstein’s friend and former classmate, Marcel Grossmann, a mathematician, introduced Einstein to differential geometry and helped him with the mathematical aspects of his theory of relativity. Based on what you know about AI, do you think Einstein would work with his friend if he lived in today’s world, or would he use AI to help him with math? Well, we will never know. One thing is for sure: your students will use AI. We are fortunate to be alive now and part of this learning transformation into the new world of AI.

This book is your invitation to delve beneath the surface, to explore the depths of human capacities, and to help write the history of this learning transformation. What you do today will impact many generations of learners ahead.

Instinct over information

It is spring 1905 in Bern, Switzerland. At the patent office, a 26-year-old sits behind a wooden desk stacked with patent applications. He is responsible for evaluating inventions for electric typewriters and gravel sorters. Outside that window, the scientific world is restless, and something enormous is about to break. Everyone in physics can feel it. Researchers across Europe are circling the same questions about light, time, and the nature of reality, with data on every desk and the mathematics within reach. The breakthrough hovers in the air, and more than one brilliant mind is reaching for it.

The moment in that small office looks remarkably like the one we are living in right now. AI is reshaping work, learning, and human knowledge faster than schools were built to respond. Teachers feel it, parents sense it, students question it, and the same uneasy doubt runs through many educational leaders as they read the news each morning: Is the world I trained for still the one that exists? The data we need to transform education is available, and the tools to do so are within reach.

‍What separates the educators who will shape the next generation from those who will be overtaken by the moment is no longer access to information. It is instinct.

Henri Poincaré and David Hilbert were among the most formidable mathematicians of their generation, and both had developed structures remarkably close to what would become Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. They knew the equations and could see patterns emerging, yet neither made the decisive leap that Einstein did. Both remained within the framework they had spent their careers constructing, even as the evidence pointed in a new direction. Their training had made them brilliant and careful.

As you have probably guessed, the young man at the patent desk was Albert Einstein. The Zurich Polytechnic had rejected him on his first entrance exam, and his early teachers were unsure what to make of him. Schools in his era were built to develop steady, accurate minds for an industrial world that needed them, and they did that work well. Einstein’s mind simply worked at a different pace. He asked questions like, What is really happening here? What does this mean for everything I thought I knew? Is the world changing, or am I imagining it?

He sat with uncertainty, resisted the urge to retreat into what was already proven, and kept listening. Over time, something shifted. American theoretical physicist Sean Carroll later observed that Einstein simply felt what the universe should be like, and from that “felt” sense, he conceptualized the theory of relativity. The equations came afterward, to demonstrate what intuition had already grasped.

The most celebrated scientific breakthrough of the 20th century didn’t begin with mathematics. It began with instinct.

Instinct, the quiet sense that speaks without words, is an inherent part of being human. It cannot be programmed or downloaded. It grows from awareness and trust. And no matter how advanced technology becomes, human skills like instinct remain humanity’s most significant advantage. As Nikola Tesla said, “Instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile.”

That statement has significant implications for our classrooms. For over a hundred years, schools have matched societal demands by preparing students for roles in factories, hospitals, banks, and offices, emphasizing reliability, accuracy, and adherence to well-structured processes. These skills shaped the modern world and remained valuable, yet the global landscape has changed dramatically.

Tasks that once required humans to follow precise procedures are now increasingly performed by artificial intelligence (AI). The work left for students involves human qualities that AI cannot replicate, such as the ability to sense what is true before data confirms it, much like Einstein at his desk in Bern. Teachers will need to develop and nurture these uniquely human capacities in their students.

A teacher in our network described an 8-year-old who never finished his math work on time. He would sit with a single problem for half the period, turning it over in his mind while his classmates moved on to the next activity. Her training in classroom pacing told her to keep him moving, but her instinct told her something else. She sat beside him and asked what he was thinking about. The boy explained that he had found three different ways to solve the problem and was trying to decide which was most beautiful. She had no curriculum standard for that moment, but she trusted what she sensed and gave him the time his thinking needed. Without a name for it yet, her instinct had recognized an Einstein at age 8.

A teacher might object here. Instinct sounds like a rare gift reserved for geniuses, certainly nothing a curriculum standard can require. The objection deserves a real answer. Gary Klein, a research psychologist who has spent four decades studying how experts make decisions under uncertainty, found that instinct is what careful analysis becomes after the mind has rehearsed it so many times that the conscious steps no longer must be performed one at a time.

The Einstein mindset is the one we are observing as it happens now. Schools have served their world for a century and have served it well, but the world has changed, and the change isn’t slowing. Every student in our classrooms has the same capacity Einstein did, and they will need it more than any generation before them, because the questions waiting for them will not have answer keys. Whether they develop it depends on the teacher beside them, and whether their school is ready for what comes next depends on the educational leader willing to trust their own instincts now, while there is still time to lead the change rather than be caught by it.

AI may be able to provide all the data we need to make decisions, but it cannot predict the future. Instinct is our innate ability to predict the future when we heed our inner voice. It is a skill that we develop, and it changes our life experience. As Cassie Kozyrkov, Google’s first chief decision officer, has written: “AI only sees the past, not the future. It only sees the pattern, not the purpose. It sees the data trail, not the human story.”

We are witnessing AI merging with our everyday life: social media, home devices controlled by our phones, generative AI that can advise us on every subject and communicate quite efficiently, and so on. We are experiencing rapid advancements in technology, science, the environment, and human relationships. Scientific progress is accelerating, and we may see more change in the next 20 years than in the past 300. What was once science fiction is quickly becoming reality. We have never seen such creativity and rapid expansion.

Should we prepare for the future of work or the future of humankind?

I published Becoming Einstein’s Teacher 21 months before ChatGPT was made public. In it, I shared how AI would reach human-level intelligence by 2030. I asked, “What do we need to coexist in harmony with AI?” And, I showed that the answer to this question lies within us. Just a few years later, education systems worldwide are either embracing AI as the solution to all educational challenges or prohibiting its use in the classroom, deeming it harmful to cognitive development.

Recent research done with 413 schools in the UK found that the experience education leaders have with AI determines what happens in their schools. A skeptical leader will likely prevent the adoption of AI, while an experiential leader, who learns and develops by doing, will try it and allow the school to use tools familiar to the leader.

Skeptical leaders have their reasons: AI can easily be a cheating tool. What is the point of teaching students to try hard when AI can get the work done a lot faster? Why do students have to learn to do something if AI can do it in seconds?

Let’s say that we do prohibit the use of AI tools in schools. What do you think is happening outside of school? Students are already using AI everywhere else, making them very efficient, and they like it! They use AI to reply to messages, comment on friends’ posts on social media, or find a non-judgmental companion to counsel them on the difficult questions they don’t want to ask another human being. It is natural to think that AI can also help to write an essay or solve math problems. However, using AI in the orthodox education system, where teachers lecture and test students’ knowledge by requiring the correct answer, can make students intellectually passive.

So, is hold-on-for-dear-life the answer to this evolution? Perhaps it is the answer for many education systems that resist AI because learning in those systems is based on students precisely retrieving content that has been crammed into their heads.

In other words, today’s students learn to have answers, but in the AI Era, they must learn to ask questions. The right question, or “prompt” as AI tools call it, opens the door to an infinite world of information and possibilities. If AI offers all the answers, we finally have the chance to learn what to do with information, rather than merely regurgitating it on tests.

As education professionals and as humans, our challenge is more pedagogical and philosophical than technological. It requires us to fundamentally rethink education in the AI Era. We are bound by the notion that we must prepare students for the workforce, meeting the current market’s needs with the skills of the moment, as if the most significant challenge were to be “hirable.”

So, most of the education systems prepare students for the known: books to read and grades to earn for success. But the world is unknown: health crises, emotional breakdowns, climate change, drug abuse, wars, famine, job market disruption, tariffs, technology advancements, and so on. By the time children leave school, there will be a whole new world for which they are unprepared. The world of the unknown requires resilience, agency, and adaptability.

Perhaps the goal is no longer to prepare for the future of work, but for the future of humankind. And what have we accomplished so far? According to the United Nations, the world has made little progress toward quality education.9 Without additional measures by 2030, 84 million children and youth will be out of school, 300 million students will lack basic numeracy and literacy skills, and only 1 in 6 countries will achieve the universal secondary school completion target. If little to nothing is done, we risk a generation without the proper preparation to coexist with AI.

‍Transforming education for the age of AI

Throughout history, technology has improved our lives as it has become increasingly accessible.

The first industrial revolution saw the rise of factory-based production and steam power, driving many people from rural to urban areas. The system of compulsory education used by most countries today was largely influenced by the system conceived in Prussia during this revolution. It focused on structured grades, trained teachers, standardized curriculum, and strong state oversight. That system evolved over time and began to reinforce the skills and character traits useful in an industrialized society.

Between 1870 and 1914, during the second industrial revolution, the world experienced rapid industrial growth and expansion, driven by the introduction of electric power and mass production, as well as other significant technological advances, including the telephone, the light bulb, and the internal combustion engine. Schools did not change their format.

Then came the third industrial revolution in the 1980s, known as the digital revolution. Technology evolved from analog and mechanical to the digital world as we know it today, with advancements such as the personal computer and the internet. And guess what? The format of most schools remained the same.

We now live in the fourth industrial revolution, in which technology has become deeply embedded in society and the human body. This revolution includes robotics, AI, the metaverse, non-fungible tokens, biotechnology, nanotechnology, autonomous vehicles, quantum computing, Web3, brain-computer interfaces, wearables, and more. Yet, the format of most schools remains the same.

Note that I am emphasizing the format of most schools, in which teachers lecture on the correct answers for the test. While it served us well in the past, this old setup teaches students about past facts while asking them to provide the expected answers. AI does precisely that for us now.

AI requires our ability to ask the right questions to output a refined answer. Inquiry and critical thinking are essential human skills that we must develop in our students immediately. Without them, we are at the mercy of whatever information AI provides.

As Stanford’s Li Jiang, head of its AIRE (AI, Robotics, and Education) research group, has said, we don’t compete with existing knowledge or with how fast we can access it, because everyone can do it. What matters is innovation, or how we use knowledge to create something new. It is essential to teach a more humanized approach to creation and innovation, as AI is tied to the past.

How students should learn in the AI Era: developing and elevating human consciousness

Three 14-year-old students sat on a beach in their coastal town, watching the sunset. What should have been beautiful felt heartbreaking when they saw plastic bottles bobbing in the waves and grocery bags tangled in the rocks. “This is where we used to swim,” one of them said quietly. “Now I wouldn’t even put my feet in.”

That evening, they decided to do something about plastic pollution, though none of them knew how to solve this massive problem. What happened next reveals how students should learn in the AI Era.

The students began researching plastic pollution. For weeks, they dove deep, reading studies, watching documentaries, and connecting with environmental groups. As they learned, they refined their questions. At first, they asked AI simple things: “What causes plastic pollution?” But as their understanding deepened, their questions became more sophisticated: “What policy interventions reduced plastic use by more than 50% in coastal communities similar to ours?”

Their brainstorming sessions happened during and after school, sometimes lasting for hours, “in the zone.” Microsoft’s Copilot, an AI system, documented their conversations and later synthesized their scattered ideas into a coherent concept paper. The students reviewed it carefully, catching places where the AI had misunderstood their intent, adding details the AI had missed, and refining the vision until it truly reflected their thinking and feasibility.

They liked their concept very much. Then came a realization: they needed funding to make this real. They asked Copilot to identify potential investors on LinkedIn who were more likely to invest in environmental solutions for coastal communities. AI analyzed thousands of profiles to identify potential investors. The students researched each investor, understanding their previous investments and stated priorities.

The students asked Copilot to design a PowerPoint presentation using AI-generated images based on the concept paper. They looked at the first draft, and something clicked. “This feels too polished,” said one of them. “We need images of beaches around the world to showcase our problem.” They asked AI to regenerate images using different prompts, learning how linguistic specificity creates output specificity.

Their plastic-free solution required creating an app to demonstrate the concept. None of them were coders, so they asked ChatGPT to write the code, which they uploaded to GitHub for the prototype. Here’s what separated them from students who simply copy and paste: they asked follow-up questions. “Why did you structure it this way?” “What happens if we change this variable?” “What are the limitations of this approach?” “Considering that this app failed to fulfill its purpose, where did we make a mistake?”

Through inquiry, these students learned to read code. Asking better questions became second nature by iterating with AI. Precision in thinking created precision in output by refining prompts.

Six months after sitting on that beach, these students pitched their solution to actual investors. One asked a technical question about scalability. Students answered confidently because they now understood the code’s architecture. Another investor challenged their cost projections. The students explained their reasoning and adjusted their model in real time with AI assistance.

Did they get funding? The answer matters less than what they discovered. These students found that AI augments biological intelligence when used with purpose and awareness. Better questions emerged from practice, and critical evaluation of AI outputs became instinctive.

‍This is what learning in the AI Era looks like. Students identify problems they care about, then use AI as a research assistant and a tool to help them develop skills they are yet to possess. They remain conscious throughout, directing the technology rather than being directed by it.

This is the human advantage: consciousness. The ability to care about a polluted beach and trust that they have the capacity to envision a different future. AI can process information faster than any human. It can generate code, create images, analyze data, and summarize conversations. What it cannot do is care about a beach where children used to swim. It cannot feel the heartbreak of watching plastic bottles bob in sunset waves or decide that this matters enough to dedicate six months to solving plastic pollution. We must explore this advantage in the AI Era.

These students gained the capacity to continue developing essential human skills throughout their lives. Learning autonomy enabled them to continue growing their intelligence, emotional awareness, adaptability, and consciousness long after this project ended. This ongoing development is the human advantage we must cultivate in every student. It is what makes us human, and that is what education must develop.

Our students’ job market

Every technological advancement has displaced jobs, but it has also created new ones. A study by Goldman Sachs predicts that 300 million jobs will be lost to AI, like carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, gardening, housekeeping, cooking, warehouse work, security guard work, policing, white-collar jobs, the army, etc. Still, at the same time, AI will create new jobs at a pace that will require today’s students to change professions three to four times in their lifetime. These changes will benefit us all, as AI adoption can increase global GDP by 7%.

Professionals proficient in AI can produce a lot more in less time. Companies may need fewer workers to deliver the same or higher output because AI is more cost-effective and productive than human beings. Forget about the 40-hour work week, work-life balance, vacation time, or sick days. AI works 24/7, increasing productivity to unimaginable levels with tireless efficiency. That is the essence of capitalism. Organizations that invest in human skills, such as empathy, emotional agility, and trust-building, while also adopting AI, will build a more balanced workforce and gain a competitive edge in an increasingly automated world.

‍AI may also help us address a historic population shift already underway. For centuries, the human population has grown. However, in the coming decades, global deaths are expected to surpass births, leading to a steady population decline. At the same time, millions of AI systems, robots, and autonomous agents are being developed. These entities are designed to generate goods, offer services, and shape ideas, much like humans do. They are also beginning to consume, invest, and drive economic growth, even as the global population declines.

 Graphs 1 and 2 – The world’s population and the average fertility rate. Source: Research Gate

This moment will be a significant handoff of the work humans do today to machines, and humankind will need it to be successful. By 2050, the population pyramid may become more conical, with fewer active workers in the labor market. As the human role in population and production diminishes, bots and AI agents are filling essential economic spaces. Human focus will increasingly lean toward pursuits that thrive on inefficiency, such as art, discovery, relationships, and invention, while machines handle tasks that scale efficiently. This evolution will mark a transition from the “world of the Born” to the “world of the Made,” offering a path for civilization to continue growing even as human numbers decline.

Graph 3 – World’s population projections for 2050. Source: The Research Gate

A future forged by algorithms

What would a world run by AI look like?

The term “singularity,” coined by U.S. futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil, is a theoretical moment when technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in profound changes to civilization. Kurzweil argues that advances in AI, brain-computer interfaces, biotechnology, and nanotechnology are accelerating us toward a moment when humans and machines will merge. Current technological developments, such as large language models (LLMs) and neural implants, paint a vivid picture of a future where humans transcend biological limits, including preventing disease and living longer.

The internet will evolve into a brain-net, an interconnected web where emotions, sensations, and feelings move at the speed of light across the globe. This symbiosis of humans and machines is what scientists call transhumanism, a philosophical and cultural movement that promotes the use of technology to improve human life. For example, as brain-computer interfaces advance, we are inching closer to a future in which mental communication could occur with a single thought, bypassing language altogether. This shift may transform empathy into a shared experience, making global consciousness a tangible reality and blurring the line between individual minds and collective intelligence. This transformation will expand human intelligence, extend lifespans, and democratize access to knowledge, creativity, and problem-solving on a planetary scale.

The Hollywood blockbuster Terminator may come to mind when we think of this human-machine symbiosis. The Terminator series depicts Skynet, a rogue AI, triggering a nuclear apocalypse and sending cyborg assassins back in time to kill humanity’s resistance leaders. Humans fight back by protecting themselves across fractured timelines.

Academic research notes that the Terminator franchise has “shaped the public perception of AI since 1984.” However, a more recent review by Stanford’s AI100 study confirms that the public’s understanding of AI is gradually becoming more nuanced, shifting beyond Terminator-style fears to concerns such as job displacement, surveillance, bias, and social impact.

While fear may be the initial response to this unfamiliar world, we must remember that AI is bringing superb healthcare solutions, driving learning transformation, and providing access to more affordable products and services, among many other benefits. We cannot stop it because it is too good for too many things. While we cannot control how much and how fast AI will evolve, we can adapt our thoughts and beliefs to harmonize with our changing world. Through education and experience with AI, we dispel the fear of a dystopian future and create a better, more advanced world for our children.

The task ahead asks educators and parents to nurture a uniquely human ability that no machine can replicate: the capacity to care, question, and create meaning from nothing. This awareness is our human advantage and develops through practice, much like Einstein's instinct or a child's natural curiosity, given enough time and trust to think. Relational Learning provides a structured approach that transforms awareness from mere luck into a conscious habit. In these pages, you'll find stories of those who experienced it firsthand: students who surprised themselves, teachers who saw beyond expectations, parents who trusted the process, and leaders who chose to lead the change before time ran out. Their stories invite you to join. Your own journey begins the moment you decide to start.