Reinventing School for the AI Era | Joe Liemandt, Gagan Biyani & Erik Torenberg

Education requires a radical redesign to leverage cognitive science and LLMs, enabling students to master traditional curricula ten times faster. Alpha School demonstrates this by limiting core academics to two hours daily, dedicating the remainder to high-agency projects that build critical life skills like teamwork, entrepreneurship, and leadership. This model prioritizes student motivation and high standards over passive, lecture-based learning, which increasingly fails to engage modern students. Universities must similarly shift from adult-centric institutional models to student-centric environments that foster real-world problem-solving and networking. By treating education as a product optimized for engagement and utility, institutions can better prepare the next generation to be optimistically capable builders in an AI-driven future, rather than passive recipients of outdated, industrial-era instruction.