Training for Obsolescence? The AI-Driven Education Trap

Se former pour devenir obsolète ? Le piège de l'éducation à l'ère de l'IA

Andrew Peterson ()
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Andrew Peterson: Techné [Poitiers] - Technologies numériques pour l'éducation - UP - Université de Poitiers = University of Poitiers

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Abstract: Artificial intelligence simultaneously transforms human capital production in schools and its demand in labor markets. Analyzing these effects in isolation can lead to a significant misallocation of educational resources. We model an educational planner whose decision to adopt AI is driven by its teaching productivity, failing to internalize AI's future wage-suppressing effect on those same skills. Our core assumption, motivated by a pilot survey, is that there is a positive correlation between these two effects. This drives our central proposition: this information failure creates a skill mismatch that monotonically increases with AI prevalence. Extensions show the mismatch is exacerbated by the neglect of unpriced non-cognitive skills and by a school's endogenous over-investment in AI. Our findings caution that policies promoting AI in education, if not paired with forward-looking labor market signals, may paradoxically undermine students' long-term human capital, especially if reliance on AI crowds out the development of unpriced non-cognitive skills, such as persistence, that are forged through intellectual struggle.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Education policy; General-Purpose Technology; Non-cognitive skills; Coordination Failure; Human Capital; Skill Mismatch (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-09-01
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-05233991

DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2508.19625

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