June | 2025
What is school in the AI age?
I had a realization that I basically only make two kinds of decisions: 2-minute decisions and 2-year decisions.
Most things fall into the 2-minute bucket. Sometimes this gets me into trouble. I realize I made the wrong decision and I would’ve made the right one if I gave it just a little more thought. But I really don’t like spending time on little things. It’s possible this is a flaw of mine. I’m a product of my time when it comes to how much I really do care about efficiency. Or, as Winnie-the-Pooh called it, “A Fish In The Sea,” which is probably more like how I should think about it.
But the other extreme is 2-year decisions. I obsess over something for multiple years before I do anything about it. I read about it, think and reflect about it, listen to podcasts, watch videos. I want to really wrap my mind around it and develop a perspective on it before I actually need to do something about it.
That might be things involving personal finance or particular theological rabbit holes. Naturally, the place it shows up the most is in family and parenting. When my first son was born, I went down a deep rabbit hole on parenting, raising boys, masculinity, and more. I’m still not out of that rabbit hole, really. But I read Of Boys And Men, The Intentional Father, The Toxic War On Masculinity, Domestic Monastery, and more. I listened to a bunch of David Thomas podcasts and read the relevant chapters in his book Wild Things. I’m slowly working my way through Andrew Murray’s Christian Parenting, which is undoubtedly the best parenting book I have personally come across.
Right now, the 2-year decision obsession is education. My oldest has one more year before he enters kindergarten (we’re giving him an extra year per the advice of Richard Reeves in Of Boys And Men. See how this works?). And, to be frank, I’m freaked out by AI.
I’m not anti-AI, and in fact, I like a lot of things about AI. I’m not an AI-doomer.
But what freaks me out most about AI is that it’s going to radically reshape our entire world in ways that we really don’t have categories for. Like the iPhone, it will be gradually then suddenly. In 2007, we got magic glass boxes that connected us to each other and we could play some games on. In 2025, we’re all anxious out of our minds, can’t focus, and can hardly function in society without one. How did that happen? Gradually, then suddenly.
I think AI will be the same. We’re currently in the gradually phase. Which means that the world my kids will start school in will look vastly different than the world in which my kids will end school. If you watch the Google Veo 3 video below, can you honestly watch that and tell me that the world 13 years from now is not going to be an unfathomably different world than ours today?
I don’t think I can, in good conscience, educate my children toward the goal of a specific career path in mind because I have no idea which jobs will make it and what new jobs will exist. I am cautious (skeptical?) about the future of universities. Obviously, we will still have them. But what will they look like? No idea.
So, it seems to me like we have to change how we view the goal of education, and it probably needs to look more like recovery than innovation.
My take?
It probably looks like recovering education as virtue training.
And then aiming that virtue at the common good (even saying such a thing is a redundancy), which can be expressed in any vocation, no matter which jobs exist and what our technological outlook is.
I’m still working through this. Like I said, it’s a 2-year kind of decision. I have some ideas on what the specifics might look like, but I’m not an educator. I’m a concerned father. So it’ll take refining. But I do think this is a massive issue that isn’t ringing enough alarm bells. So, at the risk of sounding alarmist, that’s what I’m thinking about right now.
That said, June seems like a good month to be thinking about it.
Happy Summer!
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Walking Faithfully Through Deconstruction: Interview with Ian Harber on Mere Orthodoxy
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Speaking
Xenos Summer Institute 2025 at Dwell Community Church | July 9 - 11
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My Book
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From The Bookshelf
Passing the Torch: An Apology for Classical Christian Education — Louis Markos
Like I mentioned above, education is one of the things I’m obsessing over right now. I don’t think I would if it weren’t for how quickly AI is advancing and how much I believe it is going to change education. There are some links below that get at this conversation from other angles, but overall, I don’t think this conversation is being had at near the scale it needs to be. We all need to be rethinking education right now. I don’t have all the answers, but I imagine it will resemble something that this book lays out.
The Life of God in the Soul of Man — Henry Scougal
This is one of my all-time favorite books. I just finished re-reading it. Few books refresh my spirit the way this one does. Its vision of the Christian life is exactly the one I hope to embody. Bonus points for being little.
The Ten Commandments: A Guide to the Perfect Law of Liberty — Peter Leithart
I think about this one a lot. I need to revisit it. But the way Leithart lays out God’s moral vision through the ten commandments is stunning. Also, bonus points for being little.
To Read
AI Makes Me Doubt Everything — Tim Challies
The Not At All Secret History of Nicaea — Susannah Black Roberts
Is There a Future for Church Grandpas and Grandmas? — Trevin Wax
The Ruthless Elimination of Sloth: An Appeal to Young Men — Seth Troutt
Welcome to Metamodernity — Paul Anleitner and Patrick Miller
The Right Has Forgotten Feeling — Freya India
Virtue Remains — Amy Antrivandi
AI is Coming for Online Pastoral Education — Cameron Shaffer
A.I. Will Make Learning Virtuous or Obsolete — Alan Noble
To Watch
Incredible conversation around technology. Though a little ironic that Jony went to work with Sam Altman at OpenAI right after this was released. Not sure what to make of it.
Trusting God in the Face of Death: My Last Conversation with Tim Keller — Michael Horton
Just a phenomenal conversation with Tim Keller front to back. I miss him and his voice in our times. Glad we have this.
Do This Before 2026! The Creator Survival Plan for the Changing Economy — Think Media
I’m not a Dave Ramsey fanboy or anything, but there’s good stuff here for people who work in media like I do.
The Prompt Theory: 4 Minutes Straight of Google Veo Prompts
This video is horribly unsettling but I think it’s a great example of how AI is going to scramble our epistemological sensibilities.
To Listen
Hath Pope Leo XIV Jurisdiction Here? — Mere Fidelity
Mere Fidelity is back! Really pumped to have a hand in producing this show now. It’s an incredible resource.
‘We Have to Really Rethink the Purpose of Education’ — Ezra Klein
This is a must-listen when it comes to the AI and education topic.
Robot Plumbers, Robot Armies, and Our Imminent A.I. Future | Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
Talk about horribly unsettling. Must-listen for thinking about AI.
From This Year
April | 2025
I took a week off last week to officially transition between jobs and was reminded that staycations are far superior to so-called vacations with young children.
"It seems to me like we have to change how we view the goal of education, and it probably needs to look more like recovery than innovation" — from my perspective it's a question of what needs to be preserved for society to function. There's a lot of knowledge that can be locked away in books and recovered as needed; this would correspond the many of the humanities and the theoretical disciplines like math. But the trades (plumbing, car repair, electrical, HVAC, welding, etc.) are both un-outsourceable and necessary for civilization as we know it. If AI does take over much of what we now call knowledge work, the people who know how to expertly manipulate physical objects will find that their skills have become immensely desirable.
Write on, Ian!
Here is my take on a few ways to rethink education as engagement.
➡️https://reimaginenetwork.ning.com/forum/topics/rethink-communication-by-rethinking-who-is-in-the-room