In January 2026, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, published an essay titled The Adolescence of Technology. His central claim is disarmingly simple: artificial intelligence is advancing faster than our institutions, norms and collective capacity to govern it. We are living through a technological adolescence — rapid growth in capability, coupled with immature governance.
If that diagnosis is correct, education is no longer peripheral to the debate; it becomes central.
1. From tool use to critical technological literacy
Education cannot confine itself to teaching how to use AI systems. Students must understand, at a conceptual level, how these systems function, where their limitations and biases lie, and the economic, social and ethical consequences they entail.
Technological literacy must become critical literacy — embedded across the curriculum rather than confined to optional modules.
2. Educating for uncertainty and complexity
The impact of advanced technologies is systemic and difficult to predict. This requires an educational shift: greater systems thinking, greater decision-making under uncertainty, and greater engagement with open-ended problems in which trade-offs and unintended consequences are explicit.
The goal is not merely correct answers. It is sound judgement.
3. Preparing for economic transition
Amodei anticipates significant labour market disruption. Whether timelines prove accurate or not, the direction is clear: automation will continue to reshape professional life.
Education must therefore strengthen lifelong learning pathways, cultivate capabilities that are difficult to automate — creativity, communication, ethical reasoning, and leadership — and align curricula with evolving realities rather than static job descriptions.
4. Ethics and governance as core content
When technological capability outpaces governance, responsibility cannot remain peripheral.
Education must integrate technology with law, public policy and the humanities. Students should see themselves not only as users or engineers, but as stewards of complex systems whose consequences extend beyond efficiency.
5. Institutions must mature
If technology is in its adolescence, educational institutions must mature alongside it. That requires continuous professional development in AI literacy, greater curricular flexibility, and stronger interdisciplinary cultures. Institutional rigidity is becoming a strategic liability.
Conclusion
Amodei’s metaphor serves as both a warning and an opportunity.
If technology advances faster than our ability to govern it, education becomes the primary arena in which societies cultivate judgement, responsibility and wisdom.
The task is not simply to teach new tools. It is to form citizens capable of understanding, questioning and guiding technologies whose power increasingly rivals that of our institutions.