In the industrial era, education was a linear, one shot process.
Think through the following scenarios:
Option 1:
You recieve an assignment → study suggested reading materials → write an essay → ask limited questions → rework the assignment → submit the assignment → get a grade against your peers.
Option 2:
You recieve an assignment → you get AI to break it down for you into its core parts → you then work with the AI to define out the problems that need to be solved → then you ask AI to find the right input materials to solve the problem → then you frame out how you want to approach the problem and get AI to structure a lattice → then you play with that, and make adjustments → before going to the teacher you get the AI to review your work, and give you feedback against the assignment brief → you make the necessary improvements iteratively → until you are happy and you submit.
Who is going to do a better job? Who is going to learn more? Did the person in option 2 cheat?
The answer is of course no (!).
The challenge is no longer just mastering the knowledge.
You need to learn how you can use the new technologies to unpack the problem, iterate the analysis, identify and bring together the information to maximise the works quality - as quickly as possible so you can iterate the work faster than other people.
Why incrementalism of approach is so dead
The industrial era championed compartmentalisation - breaking work into small uniform steps where everyone progressed at the same pace, using the same information.
This was incredibly stiffling to innovation.
And I want to highlight this by example:
Recall back to when you were at school. Remember when you innovated or got ahead of the class. — What happened?
This is what happened to me:
- You were warned not to get too far ahead.
- And if you tripped in your enthusiasm you’d have your marks docked, because it ‘didn’t meet the criteria’.
How dumb is that in an AI world?
Why AI can 10X your performance if you think about it correctly
The goal isn’t to be 10% better than your classmate with AI.
The goal is to be 10X better.
And you don’t do that by getting AI to write your assignments for you.
It’s all about building systems, mastering tools, and staying agile. This requires discipline, and a completely new way of working.
Here’s how you could think about it:
Your job isn’t just to learn topics. It’s to create your own learning system while you do it:
- Challenge the assumption that traditional methods are optimal.
- Reading 50 books for a 2,000-word essay may not be the best way to learn.
- Avoid over relying on generative AI to produce answers.
- Instead, build Agents to guide you through material.
- Build your AI skill stack and prompt library as you go. Experimentation is the key here.
- Start to realise it’s the best learning system that wins. Invest in yours.
Use AI to redefine how fast you can work
- Ignore traditional deadline time horizons. With AI you could potentially finish legacy work in hours.
- Use the ‘traditional time’ horizon to redefine your learning system and master the topic space you are studying much more deeply.
- While your peers work through manual tasks - you’re crafting tools to crush any and all task.
To do this, you may need to (respectfully) ‘Bend the Rules’ to beat the incrementalists. What this looks like:
- Incrementalists won’t accept your new way of working, so you may have to innovate privately and discretely.
- Don’t cheat. If instructed to write an essay without AI, comply with this request; but in the background you may want to do research, find concepts, think through the problem with AI - so you have a corpus of knowledge to write a good essay.
- Start to think about new non-conventional ways of doing things. For instance, everyone who finishes University thinks they need to apply for Graduate Jobs. Why no thinking about how you can use new skills to create new roles? It’s this type of thinking that’ll get you ahead.
Conclusion
The AI revolution isn't just about having a new tool in your toolkit—it's about fundamentally reimagining how you think and behave.
To thrive in this new paradigm:
- Build your personal AI system now: Start experimenting with prompts, agents, and workflows that complement your thinking style and objectives.
- Reframe time horizons: Use the efficiency gained from AI to deepen your understanding rather than just finishing faster. The goal is depth, not just efficiency.
- Focus on outcomes, not methods: Traditional education measures compliance with processes; the AI era rewards those who deliver exceptional results regardless of path.
- Develop a meta learning mindset: Your ability to learn how to learn will outpace those who simply learn facts.
- Start small and iterate rapidly: Begin with one assignment or project where you implement an AIenhanced approach, refine your system, then grow it over time.
The greatest competitive advantage isn't AI on its own. Most people have it today.
It’s how you use it to amplify your unique capabilities.
The future belongs to those who build systems for 10X results, and not settle for 10% improvements.