A bit of doom and gloom post AI specific
I’ve been diving down the rabbit hole with the recent AI 2027 by Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, Romeo Dean and AGI research papers (like Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness series if anyone’s read it), and I’ve been trying to map out what this actually means for our sector over the next 5 to 10 years.
A lot of people in international ed seem to think we’re totally safe because "parents pay for real humans." I agree we won't disappear right away, but I think the economics of our job are about to get smashed.
Here’s my take on how this plays out for us:
1. We have a delay, but not immunity
International schools will lag behind domestic public systems because host countries need physical expats for visa quotas, and wealthy parents aren't dropping $35k/year to leave their kid at home with an AI tutor. They’re paying for childcare, prestige, and a safe physical space. So yeah, the physical school stays open. But what happens inside is going to change fast.
2. Math and Science teachers are going to take the biggest hit
This sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out: AI is insanely good at deterministic, hard-data subjects. Once an AI agent can deliver a personalized, 1-on-1 Socratic lesson in AP Physics or Calculus better than any human alive and grade it instantly the need for a high paid subject matter expert vanishes.
The job changes from teaching content to proctoring the AI platform. School boards will quickly realize they don't need to throw top-tier expat packages (housing, flights, $60k+ tax-free) at science and math specialists when they can just hire a facilitator or proctor to keep order in the room while the AI does the heavy lifting.
3. Prepare for massive wage compression
As AI wrecks white-collar tech/corporate jobs back home, the market is going to be flooded with people looking for a career pivot. Also education budgets will probably won’t diminish but go towards less human specific salaries but more towards AI tech. Combine that with schools needing "facilitators" instead of high-level content presenters, and our bargaining power tanks. Packages will shrink, perks will get cut, and the baseline salary for standard classroom roles is going to drop.
4. Art, Drama, and "Human Element" teachers will actually hold value
The teachers who will actually stay in demand are the ones teaching things that require raw human interaction and physical space. Drama, Art, Music, PE, and pastoral/counseling roles. You can’t outsource human presence, stage presence, emotional regulation, or physical coaching to a screen. The humanities and creative arts ironically might end up being the safest fields in teaching, while pure STEM content delivery gets automated.
5. Schools will basically become networking & social hubs
At the end of the day, international schools will shift from being academic powerhouses to physical social hubs. Parents will pay for the peer network, the campus facilities, and the social/emotional environment. The academic side will just run in the background on software.
Are any of your admin teams even tracking this yet? Or are we all just pretending the status quo is going to hold forever? Curious to hear thoughts from people who've been in the international circuit for a while.
The timeline is a bit debatable but 2030-35 onwards give or take 5 years it’s all very jumpy. So why is everyone still training to be in this career. Arrival of super intelligence should be on everyone’s mind.