Research shows disruptive innovations are declining. How can schools reverse it? #
Posted September 7, 2026
Key points
- To ban or not to ban: AI technology allows us to re-delegate what students will do mentally vs. externally.
- To develop students' critical, creative, strategic, and ethical thinking, consider which tasks can use AI.
- As knowledge expands beyond human limits, future innovators need to know how to use AI well.
New York City just hit on students' use of AI. Will other districts follow suit? And should they? The answer may impact all of us far into the future, as I explain below. Perhaps we can all agree on the main question: What do we want to see in the next generation? Individually, productive citizens with fulfilling lives. Collectively, a better world than what we left them. But that is a tall order, as the world they inherit has huge, seemingly intractable problems like climate change. We expect them to tackle these problems with technology.
What Is Technology? #
"Technology" is now synonymous with "computing." At one point, the wheel, pen, and paper were new technologies. Technology is simply an invention that expands our capacity to do things.
Writing as a technology overcame human limits on memory. Plato voiced reservations about moving from orality to literacy. The ability to recite at length was lost, rendered superfluous when everything was captured permanently on paper for perusal into posterity. The oral practice of preserving collective knowledge through dialogue morphed into manuscripts and libraries. In doing so, the collective minds of a Socratic circle multiplied a million-fold.
Internal Mental Resources vs. External Capacity #
In placing the current debate on AI in context, consider what internal mental resources we want to preserve and nurture in our young. And what external tools and technology we want them to be equipped to use.
We want them to be able to think in ways that can stand up to the challenges that they will inevitably encounter. The key word is "think." Critical, creative, strategic, and ethical thinking are all essential in ensuring that the next generation can weather the storms to come—and thrive.
If we break each type of thinking into its task components, the question becomes clearer: Which part do we want our children to develop internally and which can we safely relegate to external supports?
For each type of thinking, a table below illustrates **examples** of tasks that may be relegated to AI or the student.
Critical Thinking #
- Skeptical examination of carefully selected valid information to arrive at sound judgment.
We could try to suppress students’ use of AI to do these tasks. Or we could allow them to do so but demand more. For example, ask them to justify why they picked certain options and discarded others.
Creative Thinking #
- Identifying problems, seeing new patterns, connecting disparate domains, and exploring solutions in situations with no right answers.
In a fluid, fast-changing environment, thinking outside the box is critical, as the world needs more inventors and problem-solvers.
Strategic Thinking #
- Understanding the situation, identifying goals , crafting a feasible solution to achieve these goals, and anticipating opportunities and threats.
For workers, entrepreneurs, and corporations, strategic thinking is a survival skill.
Ethical Thinking #
- Considerations of harm to others, society, and self.
Moral development should be embedded in our children's education, not just a course module.
The question in education is not just about AI use. The problem in education is in not getting students to practice all four thinking skills widely.
Where Were We Pre-AI? #
Consider what the public school system was like before 2023, the watershed year for public use of AI. Poor literacy and math achievement was already endemic: barely one-third of students were proficient in national assessments (NAEP, 2023). Claims of causation demand valid evidence from causal studies. There are many possible culprits to rule out first: the pandemic, fewer families eating dinner together, less bedtime reading, the rise in children's screen time, and the rise in parents' screen time.
What Is AI? #
Generative AI is not all there is to AI. AI is a collection of technologies that simulate human intelligence by performing tasks traditionally done by humans. Some forms of AI surpass human expertise in certain tasks due to the advantages of computing. By the same token, humans excel in other tasks over AI. So the trick is in getting the best of human ability and AI.
Challenge 1: 70% Not Proficient #
The majority of students in the U.S. are not proficient in literacy and math. In this case, human capacity is simply insufficient to resolve the problem. Reading difficulty is primarily due to inefficiencies in processing language in the brain. This problem may require AI to overcome human limitations of capacity and speed (May & Van Horne, 2025).
Artificial IntelligenceEssential Reads
Challenge 2: 30% Not Creative #
Of the students who are proficient in reading and math, much is asked of them, given the societal problems they inherit. Humankind faces challenges that require big breakthroughs. We need disruptive innovators, yet they are less likely in the future (Park et al., 2023).
What Is Disruptive Innovation and Why Is It Declining? #
As an inventor with software patents in AI, let me present it this way:
An innovation has novelty. A patented invention is also non-obvious to even practitioners in that field. A disruptive innovation is novel, non-obvious, and revolutionary. Such breaks from the past combine disparate domains together in unexpected ways. This is creative thinking.
The exponential expansion of knowledge forces scientists to work in narrow slices, making potent connections across fields less likely. Schools need to train scientists-to-be to use technology to surmount this limit.
More than just rethinking AI use in school, we have to be willing to rethink education itself.
References
National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). (2023). National achievement-level results. NAEP Report Card: Reading. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/achievement
May, H., & Van Horne, S. (2025). Results from a randomized trial of the Dysolve Program for students with reading difficulties. The Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP), University of Delaware.
Park, M., Leahey, E., & Funk, R. J. (2023). Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time. Nature, 613, 138-144.