The development of artificial intelligence is one of the biggest changes in how we live and work since at least the invention of the internet. It will change how we all go about our days. It will change, and is already changing, how we are governed.

As a result, there are calls in almost every wealthy country to teach “how to use AI” in schools or to “put AI on the curriculum”, or else to rework teaching and assessment so as to reflect just how much of what we ask school children to do can already be done by AI. In any given week, I receive at least one email a day from one campaign group or another calling for exactly this.

This debate is about a new technology, but it is part of a venerable argument in education policy about the extent to which school curriculums should be “skills-based” or “knowledge-rich”. Should schools be equipping children with the skills they will need in the future or giving them a broad foundation of knowledge?