How Colleges Should Respond to the Intelligence Revolution
Make virtue formation the main thing
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This week, I ran across a video of Terence Tao, widely considered to be one of the world‘s foremost mathematicians, sharing some of his thinking on artificial intelligence. Besides knowing that Tao is brilliant from even a surface-level understanding of his academic achievements, I was particularly keen to hear his thoughts on AI because I’ve seen many thoughtful takes on AI from him over the last couple of years.
In this particular video, a segment from an interview with Dawn Nakagawa on The Futurology Podcast show, Tao compares our current moment with AI to the green revolution of the mid-twentieth century. Just like technology prompted a relative abundance of food in the west, Tao argues that we may be experiencing a similar phenomenon with respect to cognition with the increasing accessibility and performance of artificially intelligent systems.
Here’s the interview, starting at the relevant segment about 44:47 in.
The cognitive revolution
Whether or not you think that artificial intelligence is creating a revolution that might in any frame be comparable in changing cognition as the green revolution changed our nutrition, it’s a worthwhile analogy to contemplate.
What resonates with me most about the comparison is the natural mapping onto the coupled benefits and harms. Just like the green revolution led to an abundance which made it easier than ever to eat a nutritious diet, the abundance of food also made it easier to eat an unhealthy diet. What’s more, the general availability of more plentiful food, coupled with the market demand for food packed with sugar and otherwise tasty substances are at odds with a healthy diet. For every more nutritious diet on this side of the green revolution, there are probably ten less nutritious ones.
Perhaps you see where this is going. In a world where “intelligence is on tap“ we are likely to see a similar trajectory play out. Those who have built the character traits needed to handle AI wisely will flourish and find their work more enjoyable than ever. These individuals will live ever more “cognitively healthy” lives, managing to use the tools in ways that are significantly net positive for their flourishing. They’ll be the ones taking advantage of the relative affordability and accessibility of organic fruits and vegetables.
But intelligence on tap without the corresponding level of maturity and virtue to handle it wisely will lead to cognitive intoxication. Just because it’s plentiful and available doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible to have too much.
College is a place to develop virtue and form character
Over the last few years, I’ve grown fond of sharing this figure with my students near the beginning of each semester. It’s from the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, an interdisciplinary research organization in the UK focused on character, virtue, and values in the interest of human flourishing. While the framing of “virtue” can often be somewhat off-putting to folks in secular contexts, I find that there is broad agreement about the importance of the character traits that lie under the headings, things like curiosity, critical thinking, honesty, humility, service to others, confidence, and resilience.
In the years to come, we’re going to be in increasing need of those virtues. Even if you’re skeptical of the potential benefits of an intelligence revolution, the downsides should be clear enough to us all by now. We have already all but dismissed the existence of absolute truth. Photo and video evidence is easier than ever to fake. Economic disruption in the job market and throughout various industries is already being felt. These are only a small slice of the challenges that we are facing now and will need to face in the years to come. The list goes on and on.
In the face of this challenge, we are in desperate need for colleges to become once again the place that they are uniquely equipped and qualified to be—places of deep virtue formation.
The emerging adulthood years offer a unique opportunity. Our young people are at a place and time in their lives where they are searching to discover who they want to be in the world. They are rapidly growing and maturing. The difference between the young people who step onto campus on the first day of their freshman year and who walk across the stage at commencement just a few short years later is significant.
For too long, we have seen college as a place primarily focused on the cultivation of skills—skills that will help our young people to develop leverage in a competitive economy. This is a necessary, but insufficient part of what we must be doing in order to truly set our students up to live deep and meaningful lives. The best thing that AI can do for our colleges is to force us to confront what we have all too often treated as a secondary goal: virtue formation.
The real question for colleges this year is not “how will I respond to AI?” but “how am I forming my students to live flourishing lives?” If we’re lucky, perhaps we’ll see that in answering the latter of those questions well, we’ll get some pretty robust answers to the first one tossed in for free.
I’m not exactly optimistic that most institutions will be able to turn the ship in time to avert the coming storm, but the heading we should be taking to weather it does seem to be clear enough.
Got a thought? Leave a comment below.
Reading Recommendations
Nice thread here from Boris Cherny, the Anthropic Engineer who created Claude Code, with some tips on using Claude Code effectively.
Pretty fascinating article in Pirate Wires about The Hamilton Society, a new debate club in San Francisco.
At present, the cultural Schelling point of social life in tech seems to be the incessant, unavoidable question “What Are You Building?” Social gatherings are defined by status-obsessed, LinkedIn striver culture, which prioritizes short-term, extractive gains at the expense of good quests.
As O’Brien told me:
The Industrial Revolution produced the great members’ clubs, debate societies, and civic institutions where we converged on a vision for what America should become. Silicon Valley has produced more wealth and influence than any place in history — and yet the only place its best ideas compete is a social media app that is increasingly full of slop. Our institutions need to match our ambitions. The Hamilton Society is a first step towards that. And frankly, we’re overdue.
Gone are the days — one can hope — of apathetic, anti-America young tech workers and founders turning up their noses at flyover states. Now, being a patriot, and seriously thinking about your role in the future, is central to the discourse. It’s probably no coincidence that Hamilton Society’s rising popularity has coincided with tech’s more visible interest in American politics, defense, and some of the thorniest societal problems (see: Palantir’s bet on high-school grads).
The biggest thing with coding with AI agents is building a workflow where you build out more and more tools as you build. The folks over at Every have been doing a good job of highlighting this idea under the umbrella of what they call compound engineering.
The Book Nook
If you’ve been around these parts for any length of time, you know the Brakes are big fans of children’s books. Exhibit A: last week’s post. Well, this week, the Mrs. and I cooked up an idea to help build a product to share our love of children’s books with you: Pages Worth Passing Down, a subscription box for children’s books.
The idea is simple: sign up for a subscription (or gift one to a kid in your life) and each month you can choose one age-appropriate children’s book from our curated selection of five options. You’ll get the book delivered to your doorstep along with a discussion guide, a few activities, and a little surprise to add some excitement to family storytime.
Check out the site here and let me know what you think!
For our launch week, use the promo code SUBSTACK at checkout for 50% off any subscription purchase (monthly or annual). Code expires next Tuesday night (2/10/26) at midnight.
The Professor Is In
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of chatting with Bonni Stachowiak on her podcast, Teaching in Higher Ed. It was a really fun conversation, and I enjoyed getting to riff on e-bikes and AI. The episode and show notes can be found here with links to a variety of podcast players.
Leisure Line
I stumbled on this aweseome site a few weeks ago, isometric.nyc, a sim-city style representation of New York City. Not only is the site itself amazing, but reading the details behind how its creator, Andy Coenen, made it is almost as good.
Some interesting observations at the end as well:
Unlocking Scale
This project is far from perfect, but without generative models, it couldn’t exist. There’s simply no way to do this much work on your own, and hiring a team of artists large enough to hand-draw pixel art for every building in New York City would be impossible.
AI agents unlock a universe of creative projects that were previously unimaginable.
Still Life
Last week, I was walking to the dining hall and saw a bunch of people staring up into a tree. I didn’t see anything at first. As I got closer and walked by, I finally spotted it. A pretty amazing bird was tucked into the branches of the tree.
I didn’t have time to circle around to try and get a shot of the front, but I managed to snap this picture from the back.
Fascinating! I especially appreciate learning about The Jubilee Centre Framework for Character Education in Schools from you. I shall ponder.
I so completely agree, Josh. Where do you start to influence an academic organization to focus more on understanding and developing virtue? Perhaps with those faculty that hold a Biblical worldview and would be open to integrating it into their teaching and research? Perhaps through organizations such as Cru, Intervarsity, FCA, etc? I'm going to share that diagram and discuss this blog with those in the bible study I attend on campus for staff and faculty.