As AI tools spread through classrooms, many educators see a “cheating factory.” Kellogg Professor Sébastien Martin sees things differently: as a chance to reinvent how and what we teach. In his operations management class, students trade PDFs for lifelike chatbots, log conversations with Socratic AI tutors, and use AI to explore the kinds of social and political dynamics that students normally have to learn on the job. But Martin also grapples with harder questions: What about public schools with fewer resources? When should kids use AI at all? And how can students stay hopeful and true to their own interests in a wildly uncertain future?

(Part 1/2 in our back-to-school series.)

Life, Automated is a production of the Ryan Institute on Complexity, at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The host is Jess Love, senior director. Distributed by KQED

Producer: Jesse Dukes

Music: Steven Jackson

Associate Producer: Stacia Sliger

Additional Production: Nathan Ray

Recording: George Christensen and Will Feeney

Promotional help from Ananya Mallapragada and Charlotte Simmons.