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How effective AI is and can become, ultimately depends on how you use it.

On the one hand, the temptation to just use ChatGPT and other LLMs to replace thinking, writing and creating is strong (Brodsky, 2025). The short-term pay-off may seem attractive. There will be times that it goes unnoticed and tasks are completed faster or even complimented by others. Nevertheless, this convenience will eventually come at a cost. Your assignment might get flagged for AI and be determined as fraud or the report you had to hand in to your manager might contain non-existent links. All while your learning curve is stagnating, when relying on AI passively. Both for your independent thinking as well as your AI skills.

On the other hand, AI can be used proactively as a sparring partner, personal assistant or foundation for further work (Fitzpatrick, 2025). Personally, I like to use ChatGPT to provide feedback on drafts or to brainstorm next steps in a project. In addition, I think that the ‘’Deep Research’’ function is great to get an initial grasp of a topic that you are unfamiliar with. There are a lot of other situations where AI can be used, while your own mind is still triggered to learn.

Looking ahead, the real challenge is not just learning how to use AI, but how to collaborate with it purposefully. According to Accenture, only 11% of organizations are prepared to support effective co-learning between humans and AI, providing a great opportunity for both individuals and organizations to get ahead of the curve (Close et al., 2025).

Naturally, there is also a role for educational organizations here. Finding the balance between synergies and laziness is a difficult task. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has provided 7 principles for a responsible implementation of AI in education, including transparency, accountability and lifelong learning (Partovi & Yongpradit, 2024). Nothing is perfect, but I believe these principles form a solid foundation for educational organizations to bring the best of AI to students, while maintaining the original learning curve educational organizations have to offer.

Therefore, the goal should not be to discourage engagement with AI nor let it dominate the (learning) experience, but to foster an environment where synergies can arise. When this balance is achieved, AI will not diminish purpose but elevate it. Turning technology from a shortcut into a driver for deeper learning.

References

Brodsky, A. (2025, February 11). Why You Shouldn’t Let AI Write Your Emails. TIME. https://time.com/7216284/dont-let-ai-write-your-emails-essay

Close, K., Durg, K., Sakr, P. M., Wroblewski, S., & Yosef, L. (2025, October 6). Learning, Reinvented: Accelerating Human–AI Collaboration. Accenture. https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/consulting/learning-reinvented-accelerating-human-ai-collaboration

Fitzpatrick, J. (2025, August 18). 14 ways Googlers use AI to work smarter. Google. https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-ai-workplace-examples

Partovi, H. & Yongpradit, P. (2024, January 18). AI and education: Kids need AI guidance in school. But who guides the schools? WEF. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/01/ai-guidance-school-responsible-use-in-education/

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You cannot hide from it, when you check the news, watch some video on YouTube or even on other social media platforms such as TikTok or Instagram, emerging technologies are talked about everywhere, every day. Technologies including Artificial Intelligence, Metaverse, blockchain and cryptocurrency are going to change the world, but the real question to me is, will it be for the better? Just because we can develop something which from a scientific perspective is amazing, does that mean we should from a societal perspective?

First of all, there is no denying that these technologies indeed have the potential to better the world as well as make our lives more enjoyable. That is not the point of this blog. The point is that these innovations are deemed as a panacea for today’s problem, overlooking negative aspects and (better) alternatives.

Starting with the most prominent (and promising) of all, Artificial Intelligence. In 2024, 252.3 billion USD was invested in AI by corporations around the globe (Kariuki, 2025). Often with the promise to solve every problem we cannot solve now. In comparison, eliminating extreme poverty worldwide by 2030 would need around 70–325 billion USD each year (Summer & Yusuf, 2024). As stated by Stuart Russell, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, “AI is not the universal problem solver and having a clearer idea of what AI is, and isn’t, will be critical to move beyond solutionism” (Wanger, 2023). Solutionism refers to the mindset that assumes having sufficient data allows machine learning algorithms to be the panacea to any challenge humans face (Wanger, 2023). Consequently, these massive AI investments may fall short of addressing grand challenges like extreme poverty or climate change.

What about the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchains? The promise of these technologies is to democratize the authority to regulate money held by central banks and other financial institutions (Siripurapu, 2024). The market attracts significant investment with a total value of more than 1 trillion USD (Siripurapu, 2024). Nevertheless, according to a recent ECB publication, the promise is underdelivering (Panetta, 2023). In addition, there are the environmental costs. A couple of facts about Bitcoin mining, from a United Nations study by Chamanara, Ghaffarizadeh and Madani (2023):

• between 2020-2021, if considered a country, Bitcoin’s energy use would rank 27^th worldwide, surpassing a country such as Pakistan;
• offsetting this footprint would require planting 3.9 billion trees, covering an area similar to the Netherlands, Switzerland or Denmark, or about 7% of the Amazon rainforest;
• in the same period, almost 70% of the electricity used for mining came from fossil fuels.

Finally, there is the Metaverse. According to Momtaz (2022), the Metaverse could help create a more sustainable and equitable society by reducing the depletion of physical natural resources and by mitigating social biases in offline human interactions through mask effects (Momtaz, 2022). While intriguing, they do appear relatively naïve and escapist to me. Instead of facing and solving our problems in the real world, we try to tackle them in a digital world without addressing the underlying causes.

So what is the alternative? There is no denying that innovation will play an important role in continuing economic growth and solving problems. However, the fact is that the technologies needed to solve humanity’s biggest challenges are already here (Voola, 2023). They do not have to be invented. We keep thinking of innovations as ‘the’ solution to all of humanity’s problems, everything that can be possible if we just figure out this technology. In my opinion, this is the wrong mindset. We should focus on what is necessary, not skipping directly to shiny innovations, but tackling the problems in front of us right now. As Adade (2018) states, the main barriers to progress are not technological but mainly cultural and political. Therefore, the real challenge is not to come up with more tools, but to find better ways to collaborate using the tools we already have.

What do you think, are we chasing futuristic promises at the expense of solving today’s problems?

References

Adade, M. (2018, March 14). The secret to solving global issues? Fewer secrets, more collaboration. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/03/the-secret-to-solving-global-issues-fewer-secrets-more-collaboration/

Chamanara, S., Ghaffarizadeh, S. A., & Madani, K. (2023). The environmental footprint of Bitcoin mining across the globe: Call for urgent action. Earth’s Future, 11, e2023EF003871. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EF003871 

Kariuki, N. (2025). Chapter 4: Economy. In AI Index Report 2025. Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. https://hai.stanford.edu/assets/files/hai_ai-index-report-2025_chapter4_final.pdf

Momtaz, P. P. (2022). Some very simple economics of Web3 and the metaverse. FinTech, 1(3), 225–234. https://doi.org/10.3390/fintech1030018

Panetta, F. (2023, June 23). Paradise lost? How crypto failed to deliver on its promises and what to do about it. European Central Bank. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2023/html/ecb.sp230623_1~80751450e6.en.html

Siripurapu, A. (2024, January 17). The Crypto question: Bitcoin, digital dollars, and the future of money. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/crypto-question-bitcoin-digital-dollars-and-future-money

Summer, A. & Yusuf, A. A. (2024). New estimates of the cost of ending poverty. UNU-WIDER. https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/new-estimates-cost-ending-poverty

Voola, R. (2023, June 27). Can marketing be a force for good in the world? Sydney Business Insights (SBI). https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/can-marketing-be-a-force-for-good-in-the-world/

Wanger, J. (2023, October 23). We need to move beyond the idea that AI is the solution to everything, expert says. World Economic Form. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/10/move-beyond-idea-that-ai-is-the-solution-to-everything/