Artificial intelligence (AI) will not save us. But people using AI might. Everywhere I go, I hear the same breathless excitement. Generative AI is hailed as the new saviour. Some worship it as the ultimate game-changer. Others whisper about disruption and doom. Valuations climb, pilot projects multiply and everyone seems desperate to be the first to claim they’ve cracked the AI code.

“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” John Dewey’s warning, uttered in another age, acquires an uncanny urgency in India today. For all our talk of digital devices, new syllabi, and the promise of Artificial Intelligence, the truth remains stubbornly simple: it is the teacher who holds the fulcrum of learning in her hands.

Chat GPT is the latest buzzword and is being heralded as the future, but to understand its true significance, one has to go back in history. In the late 19th century, typewriters became popular as they were much more efficient than writing by hand. Typists began to replace office workers who were performing tasks such as letter writing or keeping records by registering with their hands.

Three factors have come together to create a perfect storm in the tech sector.