When commenting on the consequence and hidden costs of AI-enabled learning in Singapore, SMU Professor of Information Systems (Education) and Vice Provost (Education Strategy and Innovations) Venky Shankararaman puts the risk plainly, “We will not graduate thinkers.” He describes a growing pattern at SMU where students are losing confidence not because they are failing, but because they have begun to believe AI does everything better than they can. To guard against this over-reliance on AI, Prof Shankararaman said that every programme at SMU first designates foundational courses where students demonstrate they can work independently of AI, such as writing a letter from a blank page given only context, or an accountant reading financial statements unaided. Building on this foundation, students apply AI within their discipline and articulate their human value-add. Prof Shankararaman said that the danger is not that students are using AI, it is that they are using it in a way that quietly bypasses the cognitive work that produces real understanding. “Learning happens in that friction. When we write something, we write a few pages, look at it, and it is crappy, and then we redo it. That struggle is very important in learning. If you do not go through that struggle and AI produces a nice output straight away, there is danger,” he added.