Thinking About the Future of Education: Coexistence of Humans and Technology in the Digital Nature Era

This presents the views of Yoichi Ochiai (Associate Professor at University of Tsukuba), who serves as a theme project producer for the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, on educational transformation in the AI era.

Educational Paradigm in the Digital Nature Era

With rapid AI technology development, the collaborative relationship between humans and machines is fundamentally changing. Previously, humans collaborated with machines for creation, but in the future, this will shift to a relationship where "computers automatically create and machines view and select," with humans approaching a state of obtaining harvests from digital nature. With this change, optimization and tool manipulation will likely end, making problem-setting abilities of "what do we want to solve" and the ability to verbalize ideal states to be resolved more important.

The Expo pavilion "null² (NullNull)" that Ochiai is working on embodies the vision of "Digital Nature" where the physical and digital worlds merge. This refers to a state where new nature emerges for humans, pointing to an environment where the distinction between natural and artificial becomes indistinguishable. As situations become commonplace where requesting AI for music production automatically results in music flowing from speakers, human perceptions of nature expand.

Educational System Challenges and Higher Education Advantages

Current AI is approximately as intelligent as graduate students, but is expected to surpass all humans around 2027, or at the latest by 2030. When current first-grade elementary students become middle school students, most problems will be solved, requiring fundamental reconsideration of educational approaches.

In elementary through high school education, it is difficult for teachers to freely modify curricula due to learning guidelines and entrance examination systems, but higher education institutions can respond fluidly. In university education, goals are shifting from vocational training to "nurturing the worldview that each person wants to create," with content previously conducted in doctoral education moving to earlier stages. This is expected to create a large gap between high school and university education.

Importance of Moving Experiences and Dialogue with Nature

Most important in education is for learners to acquire creative motivation for the future through moving experiences. Citing Terada Torahiko's "Japanese Views of Nature," he emphasizes the importance of educators themselves having moving experiences, stating that "words of religious leaders who have not had mystical experiences do not resonate."

Regarding childhood experiences, full-body experiential learning where simply viewing natural landscapes enables understanding of both physical phenomena and methods of dialogue with nature is important. At the Expo, the keyword is how to provide physical world experiences that cannot be understood through videos to children around age 10, with the purpose of nurturing future creative motivation.

Relationship Between Virtual and Reality

Regarding the relationship between virtual and real experiences, the "Minecraft sandbox problem" was discussed as a concern that virtual experiences might reduce motivation for real experiences. However, Ochiai believes virtual experiences serve as catalysts that lower entry barriers and actually enhance interest in real objects.

In early childhood, it is important to prioritize real experiences to help understand differences between virtual and reality. Rich childhood experiences enable recognition of differences with virtual experiences later.

Improving Consumer Capabilities

In the AI era, becoming "the strongest consumer" is important, which is considered more challenging than becoming a creator. In an era of infinite available content, the ability to consume appropriately is required.

The weight of human constructs surpassed plant biomass around 2018, and computers have now become larger entities than all living organisms. This is precisely the state of digital nature, meaning the arrival of the "natural society" predicted by 1970s SINIC theory.