Fei-Fei Li warns AI's biggest risk in schools isn't cheating — it's eroding students' motivation to learn, urging educators to preserve agency while using the tools.
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Schools are trying to figure out what to do about AI in the classroom. Fei-Fei Li, the Stanford computer science professor widely called the "Godmother of AI," says the biggest danger is not cheating. It is that AI will hollow out the act of learning itself.
"The absolute bad outcome is that our young generation, their agency and human-level motivation of learning and living is taken away by tools," Li said on the science podcast "Huberman Lab" on Monday. "It should not be taken away by humans nor should it be taken away by machines."
If AI is used poorly, Li said, it could leave future generations without having "properly developed the brain." But she also warned against a blanket backlash that keeps students away from the tools entirely.
"Both things worry me," she said. "Either denying the tool or taking away agency and motivation."
The warning comes as teachers and researchers are still sorting out when students should use generative AI and how to prevent it from becoming a substitute for independent thought.
A report from Oxford University Press last year found AI is helping students gain speed but lose depth of thinking. Separate research by MIT's Nataliya Kosmyna showed that people who used generative AI for writing essays performed worse over time than those who used Google or had no aid at all.
Vivienne Ming, chief scientist at the metascience group Possibility Institute, found in her own experiment that most AI users leaned on it to think less, replacing independent reasoning with generated answers, she told Business Insider earlier this year.
Li, who also cofounded the startup World Labs, said AI could become a powerful learning companion when a student is already engaged and needs help getting unstuck. She recalled struggling with organic chemistry as a premed student, when teaching-assistant hours were limited and professors had only so much time for questions.
With an AI tool, she said, she would have asked far more questions. "I know where I'm stuck," Li said. "I have the motivation to learn. I just need guidance."
That distinction should shape how schools think about the technology, she said. Instead of framing AI solely as a cheating risk, educators should help students use it to go deeper into subjects while preserving their own curiosity and effort.
"Let's find a way to keep our children and students' motivation and agency," Li said. "Let's find a way to give them the access and the right way of using these tools."
Done well, she added, AI could make future students "way smarter than us because they are superpowered."
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