None of this is an accident. Neoliberalism actively reinforced the silo model because isolated specialists who see only their own narrow domain are far easier to manage, market to, and exploit than people who ask questions across disciplines and understand how the system actually works. The result has been generations of workers and a current political class that knows a great deal about very little, and is now being outcompeted by a machine that doesn't need a salary, a pension, or a lunch break.

The skills that survive the AI age are not the ones Britain's institutions are teaching. They are:

• Curiosity, which is the ability to ask good questions rather than store correct answers.
• Critical thinking, which is the ability to challenge what the machine produces and ask what is missing, and
• Care, which is the recognition that human well-being is interdependent and that no silo ever captured that truth.

A politics of care embraces these ideas. It is not a soft alternative to economic policy. It is the only rational response to the world that is already arriving.

This is the audio version:

The Debate Ammunition for this video is available here.

This is the transcript:

The world is trapped in silos. We constantly ask people what they do. We expect people to define themselves by just one role. We place people into categories and boxes. Some silos are social constructions, others exist only in our own minds. And education is also built around these silos.

Children are taught separate subjects. English is separated from maths. Sciences are separated from history and geography. The arts are treated as another distinct category. And knowledge is divided into compartments, and my suggestion to you is that that is dangerous.

The result is increasing specialisation in education, work, and everywhere. And as a consequence, we create a very large number of specialists; people who know a reasonable amount about not very much, whose expertise becomes narrower over time as boundaries between subjects become stronger and connections between subjects are lost. And AI is going to expose the weaknesses in this model.

Specialists now face competition from machines.

AI can access what looks like knowledge almost instantly.

And AI can find patterns faster than many people.

AI often knows at least as much as specialists now, and the value of narrow expertise is being challenged.

So why have silos failed us then? The age of AI forces us to ask that question.

Knowledge alone is no longer enough. Different human skills are becoming more important. Education needs a new purpose. We need to rethink how and what we teach.

Curiosity should come first in every form of education. Curiosity is about the desire to ask questions, and we need to implant it in young people; we all need to have it.

Curiosity is also about the skill of framing questions in a way that delivers the answers we need. Good questions matter more than stored answers, then in this modern world, and AI makes questioning more valuable than ever. If we don't ask it the right questions, we'll never get close to the right answers, and curious people will then be essential in the future. This is the paramount skill that everyone is going to need in the AI age.

And critical thinking also matters more than ever now. AI answers must always be challenged. It's never okay to accept an answer. The most important thing in life is to have answers that can be questioned, not questions that can be answered. Asking questions of answers is the way in which knowledge is advanced. And so we need to be sure that we understand how AI, for example, reaches its conclusions to be certain that they are right.

We need to ask whether better answers still exist, even though it's already given us one. And we need to identify weaknesses in any analysis, and most especially that which AI will provide us with. We need to know how those weaknesses can be addressed, and that is why critical thinking matters.

We need to also ask whether the most important questions are missing.

This is a skill I was taught years ago. A wise person told me, whenever you are reading a document, a report, or anything else, ask what isn't there? What was left out deliberately? What was it that the person who wrote this report did not want you to know or did not want you to ask? This is vital. What is missing? is the question we should always ask.

Every argument always leaves something out. Every analysis has limitations, and critical appraisal requires more than acceptance. Critical thinking begins with the challenge: what is missing?

At the same time, we should teach people to care. This builds on the natural empathy we see in almost every child. Most children naturally care about each other. They share with each other. They play with each other. They're lifelong friends after three minutes in the same playgroup. Education should nurture that instinct. Care should be seen as a strength, and that's because our well-being depends on others and our ability to relate to them. Care is not just an emotional response, then. Care is a rational response to a reason for being, which is dependent upon the existence of others.

All human lives are interconnected. Other people's well-being affects our own. Pretending otherwise is absurd, and yet that is what neoliberalism does.

Neoliberalism reinforces the silos I began talking about at the beginning of this video. Those which force us to be isolated as individuals. Those things which are designed to separate us, to make us look different. That is all about suggesting that personal success is the only thing that matters in a neoliberal system, because that is it.

Because neoliberalism downplays social connection. It ignores our dependence on each other. It embeds silo thinking in education and work, and that's where this thinking comes from.

I've always disliked silos. I've always disliked being pigeonholed. I have valued the fact that I've been able to work in a multidisciplinary way throughout much of my career. Some of my work is about economics. Some is about accounting. Some is about tax. Some of it is about politics and society. Some of my work is about care and human relationships.

And the interaction between those things is what matters most of all, and that's why I think people should not be put in boxes. Labels can become constraints. Human potential crosses disciplines. Creativity often comes from connections, the bits between subjects and ideas, and not just from the straightforward observation of a particular fact in isolation. New ideas emerge between subjects and not just in them in that case. Freedom requires the room to explore.

A politics of care would then break down silos. It would recognise our interdependence. It would value curiosity, and it would value questioning. It would value critical thinking, and it would value the challenge implicit within it. It would value empathy, and it would value connection.

It would help us to get beyond silos altogether, and that is what life has to be in the post-AI era. We're in that era now. Let's not pretend AI is going away, so let's talk about what it is that we need to survive in it. And the first thing we need to do if we are to survive in this era of AI is to break down silos and to create a very different form of knowledge. One that cares, one that challenges, one that involves critical thinking and one that is curious. These are the skills we need to survive in this world now.

That's what I think. What do you think? There's a poll down below. Let us have your comments. And please do share this video if you like it, and tell us that you do just that by ticking the boxes down below. And if you want to buy us a coffee, we'd be very grateful.

Poll

 Loading ...

PDF of article