The Intelligence Crisis of 2028: The image of AI-resilient education

Abstract

The article examines the anthropological and institutional challenges confronting the education system amid the mass integration of generative artificial intelligence. Drawing on Citrini Research’s macroeconomic scenario of the «intelligence displacement spiral» and the «zero friction» phenomenon, the author projects economic trends onto pedagogical reality. The traditional educational model — which has historically operated by exploiting the «information asymmetry» between teacher and student — definitively loses its purpose when any search algorithm can instantly produce a competent answer. The article analyzes current empirical research on «cognitive offloading,» revealing a central paradox of AI in education: tools that reduce cognitive strain simultaneously erode critical thinking metrics. To conceptualize this deadlock, a historical parallel is introduced: just as the mechanization of heavy labor in the 19th century compelled society to build gymnasiums to preserve physical health, cognitive automation demands that the school be transformed into a specialized space for deliberate intellectual resistance. The architecture of such spaces is shaped by empirically grounded mechanics — Manu Kapur’s «productive failure» and Robert Bjork’s «desirable difficulties» — which demonstrate that deep understanding requires an initial confrontation with a task that appears, at first, unsolvable. The proposed AI-resilience strategy is grounded in a synthesis of L.S. Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, V.V. Davydov’s theory of the educational task, and the ancient tradition of paideia. The paper ultimately argues for an inevitable shift in educational policy — from compensating for information deficits toward the intentional design of productive struggle. In this framework, the educator takes on the role of an architect of existential experience, sustaining the student within the space of independent inquiry.