Howard Gardner: How AI Will Force Us to ‘Rethink’ Education
Rick: Howard, I’ve contended that AI doesn’t change the knowledge students need to learn. You disagree. I want to get into your take, but let’s start with a bit of context. When did you first start thinking about what AI means for education?
Howard: My interest in AI was sparked by an unexpected connection with Anthea Roberts, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, who was intrigued by my describing myself as having a “synthesizing mind.” We both love absorbing huge amounts of information and synthesizing it. Anthea discovered how adeptly AI could assist with synthesizing and showed me. With her guidance, my research team began using AI to code lengthy interviews with college students and alums. Watching AI do in moments what takes a human many hours got me thinking about its educational implications.
Rick: You may be most famous for your work developing the theory of multiple intelligences. I imagine you approach AI through that lens. So, how do the insights from that work inform your thinking on AI?
Howard: When I first presented my ideas on multiple intelligences 45 years ago, it never occurred to me to consider the relation between human and computational cognition. I was simply trying to pluralize the traditional view of intelligence as a single IQ score. But AI systems have since demonstrated remarkable cognitive capacities. In 2024, my colleagues and I wrote an essay titled “Who Owns Intelligence?” We discussed animal, plant, and artificial intelligence. Scholars, including educators, must now reflect on how these forms of intelligence relate to one another.
