What Shall I Teach My Son?

A programmer expecting his first child wrestles with what to teach in an era of advanced AI, questioning whether programming and traditional skills retain value. He traces how technology repeatedly promised to obsolete schools - from radio to internet - and argues that institutions persist because their purposes shift: to shape morality, citizenship, livelihood, improvement of the world, and basic knowledge. The author invokes the Lindy effect to explain institutional longevity, uses a table metaphor to show education rests on multiple purposes, and admits the "ability to earn a living" is wobbling as AI automates skills that once served as objective measures of worth. Market signals that once validated unconventional paths to success are under threat as AI advances in fields like mathematics, undermining familiar routes to distinction.

He leans on Neil Postman’s proposals for reinventing educational aims - stewardship of the planet, renewed civic purpose, and training people to create the tools and narratives that shape society - and stresses that how we teach matters at least as much as what we teach. Embracing the pedagogy of collaboration rather than control, he concludes that parents should invite children into co‑designing their education, shifting from top‑down instruction to joint exploration of meaningful purposes.