by Andromachi Fragkou

Skills will be the currency of the future.

Soft skills like curiosity, passion, patience, perseverance, and persistence will make the difference between a human being and a robot. Persuasion, social understanding, and empathy are going to become differentiators as artificial intelligence, and machine learning will take over other tasks. It’s these human capabilities that will become more and more prized over the next decade. The outcome will be a ‘Feeling Economy’ that provides new opportunities for everybody who acts on one simple fact: in the future, AI will do the thinking, and humans will do the feeling, as Bernd Schmitt as Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business, Columbia University mentioned in their book*.

Education has the responsibility to shape humans holistically (body, mind, and soul); humans who are self-directed, conscious, knowledgeable, and not only resilient but capable of navigating and initiating change.

by Andromachi G. Fragkou, Director of Services and Employee Development (K-12)

Many discussions are going on about how we live in interesting times, how chaotic our world is and how new crises on multiple levels are coming upon us. In this reality, the only constant is change. The booming growth of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), like most transformational technologies, is both exciting and scary. It’s exciting to think about all the ways our lives may improve, but it’s scary to consider the social and personal implications. It seems like, in the future, machines will prevail.

But what is it that makes us human? And why will human intelligence never be replaced by artificial intelligence? Intelligence and emotions differentiate humans from machines. Emotion is part of a person’s behavior and certain feelings can affect human performance. For instance, emotions could prevent a person from producing an intelligent outcome. As machines are trained to “think,” many tasks that previously required human intelligence are becoming automated through artificial intelligence. However, it is more difficult to automate emotional intelligence, and this is where an individual’s competitive advantage over machines currently lies.

Academics are the foundation, but it is not enough. Music, classics, art, and literature promote critical and ethical thinking. This kind of education can build the psychological muscle of young individuals to cope with the changing world and make conscious decisions, with empathy and compassion. Education is not about college acceptance. Education translates into life because it offers humans choices; how to live their lives, how to make an impact in their communities, and how to make this world a better place.

At a school like ACS Athens, students are immersed in technology, not only promoting learning and developing skills but also reflecting on its use and the new possibilities that lie ahead. ACS Athens is empowering individuals to become architects of their own learning to thrive as conscious, global citizens and improve life and living on the planet.

Our Teachers hold the key to cultivating the human factor.

By molding young mindsets, they are fostering change, they are shaping the future.

*The Feeling Economy: How Artificial Intelligence Is Creating the Era of Empathy, Palgrave Macmillan; 1st ed. 2021 edition (January 19, 2021)