Artificial Intelligence vs. Authentic Intelligence: Preparing Students for the Post-AI Workplace

Dr Neil Hopkin FRSA

Director of Education,

Fortes Education

In 2024, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology startled educators with findings that cut to the heart of how young people learn. Their study suggested that when students wrote essays with the help of generative AI, their brains showed reduced neural activity in areas linked to memory and creativity. Hours later, many of these students struggled to recall what they had written. The output was polished, but the learning had evaporated.

This unsettling glimpse of the “neural price of convenience” forces us to ask: what becomes of education in an AI-dominated world? For adults, AI may feel like an efficiency tool. But for children and adolescents, whose brains are still being wired through practice, play, and struggle, the stakes are far higher. The question is not whether AI has a role in learning—it surely does—but whether we allow it to replace authentic thought or use it to provoke deeper learning.

From Artificial to Authentic

At Fortes Education, in our Sunmarke and Regent International Schools, we believe the post-AI workplace will prize human qualities more, not less. Machines will soon outperform us in speed, accuracy, and routine decision-making. But they cannot replicate empathy, ethical reasoning, creativity, or the ability to navigate ambiguity. These are the hallmarks of what we call Authentic Intelligence: the deeply human capacities that sustain societies, communities, and workplaces.

Our challenge as educators is to design schools that cultivate these strengths rather than hollow them out. That is why Fortes has invested in a curriculum at Sunmarke and Regent that is not simply “AI-enabled” but “human-centred.” We integrate AI where it enhances dialogue, reflection, and creativity, and we place deliberate guardrails where it risks short-circuiting the effortful processes that make learning meaningful.

The Fortes Education Approach at Sunmarke and Regent International Schools

AI is not and should not be used as a ‘golden pencil’, which is to say that it should not be ubiquitous in the majority of school learning. It has its place a a very powerful tool, but in order to protect the vitally important cognitive ‘wrestling’ that children must experience to develop their own intelligence, AI must stay in its place and not overextend its reach. To enable this, Sunmarke and Regent International Schools have developed a three-part framework that ensures students grow as thinkers, not just as users of technology.

1. AI as a Provocation, Not a Shortcut

In our classrooms, students are required to draft first in their own words before engaging with any kind of AI tools, if at all. The machine then functions as a questioner, offering critique, suggesting alternatives, or posing challenges. This way, AI operates less as a ghostwriter and more as a Socratic tutor. Students remain the authors of their own work, while AI amplifies the depth of their reflection.

2. Embedding “Authentic Intelligence” Across the Curriculum

Our Fortes 360 and Oxbridge Preparation Programme frameworks foreground creativity, critical thinking, empathy, and ethical reasoning. These are not afterthoughts but timetabled, assessed, and celebrated across subjects. For example, debates on AI ethics in Computer Science feed directly into Public Speaking, Model United Nations and World Scholars Cup debating sessions, while Design & Technology STEAM projects are built around “messy” problem-finding and solving that AI cannot easily replicate.

3. Building Cognitive and Emotional Resilience

We draw on research in neuroscience and psychology to protect the essential role of struggle in learning. Whether through retrieval practice in maths, deep reading in literature, or exploratory play in Early Years, students experience the kind of cognitive friction that wires memory and strengthens resilience. Wrapping around all of this, our Positive Education model, which integrates wellbeing with learning, ensures that challenge is experienced not as a threat but as growth.

Preparing for the Future Workforce

The future workplace will demand young people who can work alongside AI while contributing what AI cannot. At Fortes Education, this means nurturing:

• Ethical leaders who can weigh consequences, not just calculate outcomes.

• Creative innovators who can imagine what has not yet been coded.

• Empathic collaborators who can build trust across diverse teams.

Our partnerships with global education leaders and industry experts through our unique ‘Think & Thrive’ entrepreneurs' signature programme, reinforce this agenda. For example, our AI integration strategy draws not only on government frameworks but also on insights from leading universities and commercial business leaders, ensuring that our students are not passive consumers of technology but actively informed and inspired shapers of its role in society. In short, our mission is to nurture the change makers for a better tomorrow.

A Balanced Future

The MIT study into the impact of AI on children serves as a warning, but also alludes to an opportunity. If AI is allowed to become a shortcut, students risk becoming fluent without memory, polished without originality. But if choreographed carefully, AI can help deliver what educational research has long sought: personalised guidance, deeper reflection, and the chance for every child to experience the power of learning with challenge intact.

At Fortes Education through Sunmarke School and Regent International School, we are committed to ensuring that the future belongs not just to artificial intelligence, but to authentic human intelligence: the creativity, empathy, and ethical reasoning that no algorithm can replace. In the end, it is these human capacities that will define whether the next generation merely coexists with machines or truly leads them.