Is AI Amplifying Cognition or Dismantling It?

AI is often framed as a productivity tool, but its most consequential role in education may be far more ambitious: the potential to serve as a true equalizer for students who have historically been least served by traditional systems. Used well, AI can expand access to high-quality support, personalize learning at scale, and help close opportunity gaps. Used poorly, it risks becoming another layer of convenience for adults while reinforcing the very inequities education seeks to solve.

This debate asks a harder question: not whether AI is powerful, but whether it is being intentionally designed to benefit the students who need it most.