Endangered Intelligence

At the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, people spend a week learning to forge metal, weave cloth, throw clay, or carve a spoon. There are no grades and no competition, just the experience of learning to do something you couldn't do before. In a world where AI can generate a photo, a strategy, or a financial forecast in seconds, that kind of slow, hands-on learning is starting to feel almost radical. In this episode of Cultivating Intelligence, Christine explores what craft can teach us about the moment we're living through. Drawing on the folk school's hundred-year history, recent research from Microsoft on AI and critical thinking, and new OECD reports on skills in the AI age, she makes the case that output is not expertise. AI can make us capable of producing something without making us capable of understanding it. And as AI gets better at producing work that looks competent, we may need more human expertise to spot when it isn't, even as we quietly remove the experiences that build that expertise in the first place. This isn't an argument against AI. It's an argument for being deliberate about which human capabilities we keep developing. Christine looks at why some friction is actually learning, why organizations need their own "imperfect bowls," and why leaders may soon need to track capability risk alongside financial and operational risk. If you've ever wondered what gets lost when the answer arrives before the effort, this episode is for you. Connect with Cultivating Intelligence: - Bluesky - YouTube - LinkedIn Resources: OECD's June 2026 AI and Skills: What We Know So Far  https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/ai-and-skills\_f843b352-en/full-report.html OECD's July 2026 Skills in the AI Age  https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/skills-in-the-ai-age\_972bd15e-en/full-report.html Microsoft Research critical thinking study  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-impact-of-generative-ai-on-critical-thinking-self-reported-reductions-in-cognitive-effort-and-confidence-effects-from-a-survey-of-knowledge-workers/ John C. Campbell Folk School history  https://www.folkschool.org/folk-school-experience/our-history/