‘AI can help kids achieve more but overreliance may hurt learning’: Sam Altman

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has cautioned that artificial intelligence could be making some children “dumber” if used as a shortcut, even as he underscored the technology’s vast potential to transform education for the better.

Speaking in an interview with The Indian Express, Altman acknowledged concerns that students may rely too heavily on AI tools instead of developing their own thinking skills.

“True for some kids,” he said, recalling conversations where students admitted using AI to avoid doing schoolwork.

“This is great. I cheated my way through all of high school… I assume I can still use ChatGPT to do my job. This is very bad.”

Overdependence vs empowerment

Altman explained that while misuse exists, it represents only a slice of how young people are engaging with AI. Many students, he said, are using tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT to expand what they can create and learn—rather than replace effort entirely.

According to him, the real challenge is ensuring children continue to build:

Independent thinking

Creativity

Problem-solving abilities

“We absolutely have to still teach our kids to learn and to think and to be creative and to use these tools,” he said, adding that most students express excitement about how much more they can accomplish with AI assistance.

Schools must rethink teaching and evaluation

Altman stressed that education systems will need to adapt quickly to an AI-driven environment. Traditional methods of testing memorisation may no longer reflect meaningful learning outcomes.

“I think we will need to find new ways to teach and evaluate in school to make sure every kid is brought along,” he noted, expressing confidence that AI can ultimately enable people to “learn more, do more.”

A familiar debate: Echoes of early internet fears

Drawing a historical parallel, Altman compared today’s anxieties around AI to the backlash that greeted early search engines like Google in classrooms.

Teachers once feared that instant access to information would undermine education, he recalled. Instead, schools gradually adapted, shifting focus from memorisation to analysis and application.

“I watched over the next few years teachers come to peace with this, the education system evolve,” he said, arguing that every transformative tool raises expectations rather than lowering them.

A generation poised to do “what no one today can”

Looking ahead, Altman predicted that children growing up with AI will ultimately surpass current capabilities, much as digital natives did in the internet era.

He suggested that students graduating in the future may be able to solve problems and build systems unimaginable today—if education successfully balances human skills with technological augmentation.