Man And Superman - The Future Of Education

In the One Million by One Million online curriculum, almost eight years ago, I decided to put in a line as a joke: “We’re working on a chip that can be implanted in your brain and it will transfer ALL the entrepreneurial knowledge from my brain to yours. However, this chip is not quite ready yet. So, in the meantime, please study the curriculum and learn the methodology of entrepreneurship that we have designed.”

Well, little did I know that this would cease to be a joke by 2018.

In fact, in the next decade or two, perhaps, this sort of implant will become the future of education.

Today, if you want to become a Computer Scientist, you go to university and get trained in Algorithms, Data Structures, Computer Architecture, Artificial Intelligence, etc. You learn a set of programming languages. You learn how to debug your code. You learn how to architect a system. So on and so forth.

Or, you can also take those courses from a MOOC like EdX or Coursera, and take advantage of the possibilities offered by online learning.

To become a doctor, you go to Medical School.

To learn business, you go to Business School.

But in the world that we are resolutely marching towards, this may very well cease to be how education is imparted. Education may become a surgical implant, rather than something acquired through many years of rigorous toil.

Education, thus, may neutralize the advantages enjoyed today by high IQ individuals, and make it possible for everyone to be extraordinarily knowledgeable in his or her chosen field or fields.

With one custom, highly personalized implant, you could be speaking five languages, have mastery over the entire field of medicine (not just specialized disciplines like Endocrinology or Pediatrics), and be able to play concert level violin by the age of eighteen.

Yes, I am talking about a world where Man and Machine fuse to create Superman out of every individual.

That, I think, is where we are headed.