Five Minds…Rethinking Education in the Era of AI General Intelligence

© Howard Gardner 2025

At the beginning of the 21st century, I asked myself: “What are the kinds of minds that will be—and that should be—valued in the period ahead?”

Drawing on my own previous research and writing, as well as on my anticipation of what might lie ahead, I discerned—and wrote about—“Five Minds for the Future.” The book was initially published in Spanish (2004) and shortly thereafter in English (2005).

Three of the minds were clearly cognitive and the product of study and imagination:

Disciplined  

The capacity to master the major disciplines of knowledge that have been valued in scholarship: history, philosophy,  language, the arts,  biology, physics, chemistry, and the social sciences—in short, the topics that might be covered in a hefty course catalogue (now, of course, available chiefly online). Taking advantage of the dual meaning of the term “discipline,” I also valued the regular work and study habits required to become knowledgeable in any of these and many other fields of study.

Synthesizing  

In addition to being able to master the terms and moves of the various scholarly disciplines, I was beginning to take into account the human capacity to survey massive amounts of information from different sources—and, as a desideratum—to be able to put together, assemble, and intertwine these strands of thought in fruitful ways. As it happens, I saw myself principally as a synthesizer—if one wanted to be ungenerous, a “textbook writer”—and I became interested in how that process of synthesis actually takes place. (See my blog on textbooks and synthesizing, linked here.) In the intervening decades, I’ve thought and written a good deal about the act of synthesizing—and in fact chose to title my intellectual memoir A Synthesizing Mind. I’ve also pursued this topic in dozens of blog posts—my Synthesizing blog series is linked here. 

Creating  

Toni Morrison

A remarkable human gift—one particularly valued in Western societies since the time of the Renaissance—creating involves the capacity to pursue new ideas or conceptions, in perhaps novel ways, and to announce or exhibit in ways that can make sense to other individuals—either soon, or over the long haul. Think Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Darwin—or, in more recent times, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Martha Graham, Toni Morrison. I mean here Big-C creativity (Gardner 1993; Gardner and Weinstein 2018).

The remaining minds—while certainly calling upon cognition—pertain more to the ways in which human beings may relate to one another as members of the same species and residents of the same planet. And at this historical moment, they seem far more important—indeed, far more momentous!

Respectful  

We owe certain actions and attitudes to other human beings—both those close to us (by blood or residence) and those further away, with whom we might nonetheless have (or even come to have) relations (directly or indirectly). Though hardly easy to achieve, “respect” can readily be defined and  recognized. It’s captured in the Golden Rule, the Code of Hammurabi, and the Ten Commandments—being respectful to one’s elders, kind to others, not lying, nor stealing, nor injuring, let alone killing others.

Ethical

By virtue of the kinds of work that we carry out, as well as the political systems in which we live, human beings encounter challenging and complex issues. As examples, are there cases that a lawyer should not take on—and why or why not? How should a journalist write about an event where he or she has strong personal feelings? Should a doctor prescribe a course of treatment in a facility where a family member has a financial interest? How much time and energy should a teacher devote to a single child who is causing trouble for the class?

For such conundra there are no easy answers—respect is important but not sufficient; one must ponder these multi-faceted issues and attempt to reach the best possible resolution—and once one has taken action, one should reflect on what one has done and determine whether one could do a better job or make sounder recommendations in the future. Moreover, while respect is very important, one can envision individuals who reflect and attempt to behave in ethical ways, even though they would not merit the descriptor “respectful.”

What does it mean to have an ethical frame of mind? I find it convenient to use “D” as a mnemonic.  Ethical Workers or Citizens confront Dilemmas: We should Discuss, Debate, Deliberate, Decide—and, thereafter, Debrief. (See this Good Project blog, which goes into further detail on each step.) 

A quarter of a century later, by no means would I suggest that we abandon these line of inquiry and action. I’d like young people—including, now, my five grandchildren—to have minds that are disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful, and ethical.

But with the benefit of hindsight, and with the privilege of foresight, it’s timely to RETHINK these five minds—particularly their priorities—and to consider how they might play out in the years, decades, perhaps quarter century that has just been launched.

The stark fact: We now have instruments of artificial intelligence—Large Language Models—ChatGPT, Claude, etc.—indeed, in the opinion of many knowledgeable scholars and pundits we are nearing the threshold of Artificial General Intelligence. AI appears to be superior to humans at the first three kinds of minds I described. Such instruments have the disciplined knowledge, the synthesizing capacities, and—yes, I would dare to suggest—the creative skills to equal or surpass whatever peer group you might choose to think of—the National Academy of Sciences, Nobel Prize Winners, recipients of  Arts Medals, or the faculties of major universities around the world. You might well quibble with the particular instances that I invoke—but over the decades, your quibble would seem increasingly like a voice vanishing in the wilderness.

To be sure: I would not want to suggest—or even hint—that we as humans should stop cultivating the capacities of disciplining, synthesizing, or creating—any more than that we should stop playing chess or making paintings or writing poems or tinkering in the lab or the machine shop. But we may have to consign ourselves to the realization that, in nearly all cases, AI instruments will eventually—if not quite soon—do a more impressive job than we do.

Of course, this state of affairs has huge educational implications—and here are my still jejune thoughts:

For the foreseeable future, young people should continue to go to school—preferably in person, if necessary online, in synchrony or asynchrony, and they should learn the Three Rs—Reading, ‘Riting, ‘Rithmetic—and coding, because that latter form of cognition has become as fundamental as were the three Rs in earlier times.

But whether they go further or deeper—be it in history or histology, in physics or poetry—should be an individual elective, not a requirement. By the same token, whether we decide to paint or play scrabble, punt a football, or pursue the 100-meter sprint should be a choice (initially of the family, ultimately of the offspring)—even if innumerable entities can now surpass us in these pursuits.

But there are stances that we cannot afford to abandon:

First: What I will call “The Top of the Mountain.” (Too bad the word “Meta” has been seized by a major social media company.) We may not want (or need) to master the details of history—but we need to have enough understanding of what history is, how it works, how it can be carried out effectively, how it can be twisted, so that we can make reasonable judgments of quality. We need to be able to compare various historical accounts available online and ascertain which seems worthy, which seems off base, which seems nefarious. Just how much “old fashioned” history one needs to know to be able to make such judgments is an empirical question—and one well worth investigating.

Also, “The Tools of Interrogation”—When we call up a set of historical or physical or biological accounts of a phenomenon of interest, we need to be able to pose questions, challenges, doubts—and compare how these are responded to by various LLM and AGI instruments. Thus, as was first pointed out by Anthea Roberts (2025), we should flip the traditional Socratic methods: Instead of educating students on how to answer questions, we must instead educate students in how to ask questions, and pose follow-up inquiries, and judge the qualities of the various initial and succeeding responses. (Some might dub these “critical questioning skills.”) And of course, the students must retain a critical stance toward the answers that are forthcoming—since they may be misleading, inadequate, or downright wrong!) So much for the three “Cognitive minds” of the future.

And as for the remaining two “person-centered minds”—respectful and ethical? Without doubt, the architects of LLM will create online players who treat “real” human beings with respect. This skill goes back to “Eliza” – an online therapist program developed half a century ago by pioneering computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum. It is manifest in contemporary avatars who can be seductive—indeed, preferred by many to having contact with fellow human beings, who are not always well-behaved. (See the debate at MIT on April 10, 2025 between Ariana Huffington and Sherry Turkle.) Huffington (pictured top) argued that we humans benefit from being able to interact with congenial digital avatars. Turkle (pictured bottom) responded that as human beings, we need and should deal with entities that challenge us and make us uncomfortable).

At this moment, there are over eight billion human beings on the planet…and all of us must deal with some of our fellow homo sapiens. From early in life, we can and should learn to deal with other persons kindly and respectfully—and only cease to do so under the most threatening provocations.

In my view: This capacity, skill, or stance of respect cannot and should not be downloaded to a device—no matter how “smart” it appears to be. One would hardly be alive unless one had regular direct experiences dealing with other members of our species—some encounters and interchanges predictable, others a surprise.

Which leaves the last of the five minds: the ethical mind, the mind that must grapple with the dilemmas that arise in the course of work and in the course of citizenship—two roles that most of us will engage in…at least for the foreseeable future. But as I have recently come to realize, the roles of work and citizenship operate very differently in a democratic society (where individuals are afforded a good deal of authority or license) than  they do in an authoritarian society—where the options of how to act and behave and respond are far more limited, if they are not completely prescribed. See my recent blog on democracy and good citizenship, linked here.

No matter how powerful they are and become, I do not want to concede the resolution of ethical dilemmas completely to non-human entities. To be sure, LLM can provide important options and guidance, and sometimes ones a good deal wiser than those forthcoming from most other entities on the planet. But while I am willing to concede disciplined, synthesizing, and creating genius (wholly or in large measure) to non-human entities, I draw the line when it comes to the tackling of ethical conundra.  As I view it, we members of homo sapiens are the guardians of our planet, our species, and other living entities. It is up to us to wrestle with the most challenging issues that arise and to resolve them as best we can. Indeed, even if our devices exceed us in cleverness in many ways, we retain a role of guardian that we simply cannot relinquish. (See a blog I co-wrote with Shinri Furuzawa on AI on diplomacy, linked here.) Put differently, if not morbidly, if our planet is to be destroyed, that should be done by human beings, and not by entities that we have constructed but now can no longer control.

Even to raise this stance catalyzes profound educational issues. Indeed, it makes me consider flipping the customary educational balance—away from the cognition trio and toward the human/humane duo. Perhaps we need to start early in helping children know how to deal directly with their fellow creatures on the planet—and not just the human ones. And perhaps we need to continue throughout life (in whichever educational entities are regnant) to nurture our capacities to deal with complex ethical issues of work and citizenship as best we can—and to distribute accolades and critiques appropriately. This is the side of the educational scale where we—as a species—should put our weight.

Students of education will rightly point out that some of the most impressive schools have always acknowledged this duality, this tension, this imperative in mind—think, Confucian or Platonic academies, progressive schools in the tradition of John Dewey, the Centers for Early Childhood in Reggio Emilia. That may be so. I can attest that for the last century and perhaps more, these social, respectful, and ethical dimensions have been (regrettably) minimized, in favor of a focus on a certain constrained view of education, cognition and, indeed, intelligence.

Perhaps, as we enter the second quarter of this century—and we must hope that it will not be the final quarter for humanity—we need to enhance respect for other human beings, respect for other living creatures, and respect for our planet—and then, building on that respect, strive to address and solve the ambit of ethical dilemmas as best we can.

References

Gardner, H. (1993). Creating minds. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (2005). Five minds for the future. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Gardner, H. (2020). A synthesizing mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Gardner, H. (2005). Las cinco mentes del futuro. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Paidos. [A shorter version of Five minds for the future. Originally published in Spanish.]

Gardner, H., & Stachura, A. (2024, April 4). Truth, beauty, and goodness in the era of the influencer: A sixty-five year saga. Howard Gardner. https://www.howardgardner.com/howards-blog/truth-beauty-and-goodness-in-the-era-of-the-influencer-a-sixty-five-year-saga

Gardner, H., & Weinstein, E. (2018). Creativity: The view from big C and the introduction of tiny c. In R. J. Sternberg & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), The nature of human creativity (pp. [pages, if known]). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

MIT Media Lab. (2025, April 10). Can we design AI to support human flourishing? Conference to launch Advancing Humans with AI Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Media Lab.

Roberts, A. (2025). From answer-giving to question asking: Inverting the Socratic method in the age of AI. [Details pending publication].

Weizenbaum, J. (1966). ELIZA—A computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine. Communications of the ACM, 9(1), 36–45. https://doi.org/10.1145/365153.365168