AI has upended schooling as we know it. Students now have instant access to tools that can write their essays, summarize entire books, and solve complex math problems. Whether they want to or not, many feel pressured to use these tools just to keep up. Teachers, meanwhile, are left questioning how to evaluate student performance and whether the whole idea of assignments and grading still makes sense. The old model of education suddenly feels broken.

So what comes next?

In this episode, Daniel and Tristan sit down with cognitive neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf and global education expert Rebecca Winthrop—two lifelong educators who have spent decades thinking about how children learn and how technology reshapes the classroom. Together, they explore how AI is shaking the very purpose of school to its core, why the promise of previous classroom tech failed to deliver, and how we might seize this moment to design a more human-centered, curiosity-driven future for learning.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_

Guests

Rebecca Winthrop is director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and chair Brookings Global Task Force on AI and Education. Her new book is The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better, co-written with Jenny Anderson.

Maryanne Wolf is a cognitive neuroscientist and expert on the reading brain. Her books include Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain and Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA
The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better by Rebecca Winthrop and Jenny Anderson

Proust and the Squid, Reader, Come Home, and other books by Maryanne Wolf

The OECD research which found little benefit to desktop computers in the classroom

Further reading on the Singapore study on digital exposure and attention cited by Maryanne

The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han

Further reading on the VR Bio 101 class at Arizona State University cited by Rebecca

Leapfrogging Inequality by Rebecca Winthrop

The Nation’s Report Card from NAEP

Further reading on the Nigeria AI Tutor Study

Further reading on the JAMA paper showing a link between digital exposure and lower language development cited by Maryanne

Further reading on Linda Stone’s thesis of continuous partial attention.

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We Have to Get It Right’: Gary Marcus On Untamed AI

AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.

Jonathan Haidt On How to Solve the Teen Mental Health Crisis

Artificial intelligence is set to unleash an explosion of new technologies and discoveries into the world. This could lead to incredible advances in human flourishing, if we do it well. The problem? We’re not very good at predicting and responding to the harms of new technologies, especially when those harms are slow-moving and invisible.

Today on the show we explore this fundamental problem with Rob Bilott, an environmental lawyer who has spent nearly three decades battling chemical giants over PFAS—"forever chemicals" now found in our water, soil, and blood. These chemicals helped build the modern economy, but they’ve also been shown to cause serious health problems.

Rob’s story, and the story of PFAS is a cautionary tale of why we need to align technological innovation with safety, and mitigate irreversible harms before they become permanent. We only have one chance to get it right before AI becomes irreversibly entangled in our society.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Subscribe to our Substack and follow us on X: @HumaneTech_.

Clarification: Rob referenced EPA regulations that have recently been put in place requiring testing on new chemicals before they are approved. The EPA under the Trump admin has announced their intent to rollback this review process.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

“Exposure” by Robert Bilott

ProPublica’s investigation into 3M’s production of PFAS

The FB study cited by Tristan

More information on the Exxon Valdez oil spill

The EPA’s PFAS drinking water standards

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

Weaponizing Uncertainty: How Tech is Recycling Big Tobacco’s Playbook

AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.

Former OpenAI Engineer William Saunders on Silence, Safety, and the Right to Warn

Big Food, Big Tech and Big AI with Michael Moss

One of the hardest parts about being human today is navigating uncertainty. When we see experts battling in public and emotions running high, it's easy to doubt what we once felt certain about. This uncertainty isn't always accidental—it's often strategically manufactured.

Historian Naomi Oreskes, author of "Merchants of Doubt," reveals how industries from tobacco to fossil fuels have deployed a calculated playbook to create uncertainty about their products' harms. These campaigns have delayed regulation and protected profits by exploiting how we process information.

In this episode, Oreskes breaks down that playbook page-by-page while offering practical ways to build resistance against them. As AI rapidly transforms our world, learning to distinguish between genuine scientific uncertainty and manufactured doubt has never been more critical.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

“Merchants of Doubt” by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway

"The Big Myth” by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway

"Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson

"The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair

Further reading on the clash between Galileo and the Pope

Further reading on the Montreal Protocol

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

Laughing at Power: A Troublemaker’s Guide to Changing Tech

AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.

Tech's Big Money Campaign is Getting Pushback with Margaret O'Mara and Brody Mullins

Former OpenAI Engineer William Saunders on Silence, Safety, and the Right to Warn

CORRECTIONS:

• Naomi incorrectly referenced Global Climate Research Program established under President Bush Sr. The correct name is the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
• Naomi referenced U.S. agencies that have been created with sunset clauses. While several statutes have been created with sunset clauses, no federal agency has been.

CLARIFICATION: Naomi referenced the U.S. automobile industry claiming that they would be “destroyed” by seatbelt regulation. We couldn’t verify this specific language but it is consistent with the anti-regulatory stance of that industry toward seatbelt laws.