02/08/2025
What if everything we think our children need to learn is already becoming obsolete? 🤔
Remember Star Trek: The Next Generation? Nobody on the Enterprise needed to know how to code the ship's computer or repair the warp drive manually. They focused on exploration, diplomacy, solving complex problems, and making ethical decisions. The technology handled the technical details. We're already living in that world.
Today's iPhone is over 100,000 times more powerful than the computer that landed humans on the moon. The tricorders and communication devices from Star Trek are now reality in our pockets. iPads became synonymous with computing and entertainment at our fingertips, making complex technology as intuitive as touching and swiping.
There's a developer who grew up in the 90s with access to the latest computers since 1994, whether at computer centers or hacking away in JavaScript and HTML at net cafes. He didn't have a computer at home until university, but was always finding ways to get hands on the cutting-edge tech of the time. He mastered DOS commands, learned to navigate early web browsers, and thought he was so advanced when he could code basic websites.
Guess what? Every single one of those "essential" tech skills became completely obsolete within a few years.
But here's the real story. This developer spent 22 years getting really good at web development. Fast, efficient, quality work. Then along came AI tools like Cursor, and suddenly he could build amazing websites in a week that would have taken a month before. Sure, they're filled with bugs that are intuitive to the human mind but completely elusive to current AI implementations, but with follow-up prompting and iteration, this young technology essentially replaced decades of hard-earned experience in less than 3 years.
Think about that for a moment. Two decades of expertise, compressed into accessible AI assistance.
Today's "must-have" coding languages and digital platforms will be tomorrow's DOS commands. The specific tech skills we're frantically trying to teach our kids will likely be handled by AI or replaced by something we can't even imagine yet.
What won't become obsolete? The ability to learn and research. Curiosity and problem-solving. Empathy to understand what people actually need. Character to do the right thing when no one's watching. Wisdom to use powerful tools to help others, not harm.
As technology becomes more powerful, these human qualities become more precious, not less. We need people who ask the right questions, care about consequences, and remember that all our clever inventions should serve life in all its forms.
Our kids will work with technologies that don't exist yet, solving problems we haven't identified. That developer? That's me, Fahad Murtaza, founder of iSuperCoder. And I'm teaching my children to be learners, helpers, and thoughtful humans. That prepares them for any future.
