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In my previous post, I claimed that AI accelerates “credential stacking”. People are incentivized to use AI to buff their resumes with accomplishments over toiling through experiential learning.

Thinking even further, the changing environment around AI pushes into a deeper psyche that roots in the drive children develop (because society rewards them to stack credentials). Just think for yourself, when do you do your best, most creative work? Is it when your boss says they need the presentation done in the next week? Or is when you build your hobby project on the weekends over the course of multiple years?

When we talk about kids learning, we often celebrate their “natural curiosity.” We see a toddler asking “why?” fifty times a day and recognize it as the rawest form of learning. But as they move through the educational pipeline, that internal “why” is slowly replaced by an external “what do I need for the A?” or “what looks best on my application?”

The Praise Trap

This shift doesn’t happen by accident. It is reinforced by society, and most heartbreakingly, by parents. We praise the accomplishment, not the process. We celebrate that prestigious acceptance letter or that all star basketball trophy.

When a child participates in an activity because they are genuinely curious, the reward is the participation itself. The internal learning feeds on the desire to participate itself and brings out the best in our creativity, thinking and drive. When grades, trophies and external recognition are introduced, there’s a shift in focus from a child’s own desire to learn to external validation and public amusement. The child stops learning to understand the activity and starts learning to manage parent and public expectations.

My daughter recently started playing little league basketball. She loved it for the game itself. She wants to practice it everyday and shoots hoops until the sun goes down. But on game days, there’s a part that actually bugs me a little. At the end of the game, there’s a sportsmanship medal that the coach (me) has to give out. The kids know this by now and they quickly huddle and vie for the medal giving reasons why they should be the chosen one. What do you say to them? You want to be fair (ideally they all get it at some point), but at the same time you want to tell them the reason for the medal. It’s a very odd situation if you ask me, why not just be there for the game?

As I pondered over how AI fits into society’s current educational incentive system, I recalled the book Drive, where Pink talks about the difference between carrot and stick and intrinsic motivation.

The research in the book is clear: for simple, routine tasks, carrots and sticks work fine. Not great, but ok enough. But for “higher thinking” society ironically prizes, extrinsic rewards actually decrease performance.

“Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money…The secret to performance and satisfaction is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and the world”. This is on the back of the book, but, in a timely way, points out the “human need” (as opposed to the ai directed need) to direct our lives.

The short form of the book is Pink identifying three pillars of motivation: 1. Autonomy: This is where the child decides to do things for themselves. 2. Mastery: The urge for the child to do the thing they want better. 3. Purpose: I’m not sure this is relevant in the early stages of childhood, but maybe it’s applicable nearing the end of highschool when kids start to realize they can poke and prod the world around them.

Credential stacking with AI is the antithesis of these pillars. It limits autonomy by forcing students onto take on a pre-defined track of “exceptionalism” for things they don’t necessarily want to do. It hollows out mastery by basically having AI do the work for them. And it obscures purpose by making the goal the credential itself, rather than the impact or understanding the student could achieve.

If we continue to reward the “polished paper” and the “stacked CV” over the messy, slow, and often frustrating process of genuine inquiry, we atrophy our brain muscles. By lowering the friction of “accomplishment,” it has made it even more tempting to abandon curiosity in favor of the easier, extrinsic win.

I think the optimistic side of the AI coin would be that a combination of curiosity paired with AI (as a tool not a crutch) would drive more creative outcomes than previously possible. But how do we get this upside when the tempting shortcuts and credential stacking incentives are in the way?