Artificial intelligence is here to stay, and whatever limitations it might have today, we can expect it to have a big effect tomorrow. In recent months, there has been a growing chorus of AI experts warning about the technology’s effect on jobs, with some calling it “an existential threat.” 

It’s easy to see why. It’s cheaper and faster than humans, and when it finally becomes refined, it could be better. At the end of the day, our futures are defined by our choices, and if the way we work is going to be different, the way we educate must be, too.

For decades, the United States has relied on an educational system that, despite improvement over the years, still operates in the shadows of its post-war purpose, when a high school diploma was sufficient to earn enough to buy a house and offer a better life. Since those days, technological advancements and globalization have redefined the skills needed to earn a living wage, making a diploma a relic and a college degree the new standard of success. 

Today, even a college degree might not be enough, with rising college debt and housing and healthcare costs beyond the reach of many. This is due to a growing gap between education and economic outcomes. Adding a new technological advancement to the landscape, such as AI — which is already replacing entry-level and medium-skilled jobs in customer service, data analysis, retail, marketing and countless other fields — poses a formidable challenge. To meet this challenge, we need to rethink how we educate for the world to come.

To be clear, this is not meant as a call for AI literacy programs. Rolling out a curriculum to teach high school students how to use AI, while necessary and important, is only part of the answer. This isn’t just about working with AI; it’s about working in a world changed by AI.

On the education front, we must place greater emphasis on developing those durable, or transferable, skills like critical and creative thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, continuous learning, emotional intelligence, and technical literacy that leverage the value of human experience and optimally create separation between people and the future capabilities of AI. 

Academic and hard skills are important, but it’s the ability to acquire those skills throughout a lifetime that will be critical, and transferable skills offer the foundation for that. 

To accomplish this, we need a systemic approach, but from the bottom up, not from the top down. As well-intentioned as policy-based remedies are, they often fail to foster ownership at the implementation level and tend to fade away after a few election cycles. What we need is an approach that takes what we have and emphasizes experience-based learning that not only builds those transferable skills but also puts an intense focus on education beyond high school — whether it be college, trade school, certifications, or some other pathway — specifically in those fields and professions most likely to offer opportunities for growth in a new AI age.

At Junior Achievement, this is the work we are doing. We are reaching more than 4.8 million students annually with experiential learning offerings that promote those transferable skills, while providing guidance on what education and training can look like after high school. In the process, we are promoting economic mobility, the ability of this and future generations to do as well or better than those who came before, by giving students clear direction and access to opportunities after high school.

The reality is, more needs to be done. Much more, and now. The advantage of the bottom-up approach is that things happen in real time. The disadvantage is that many of these efforts can spread limited resources thin and fail to scale meaningfully. It’s time for those concerned about this issue to begin working together to support those initiatives that show the most promise, treating the transformation of education the way they would an emerging technology such as AI … focusing on what works, investing in it and rising to the challenge of our age.

Jack Harris is CEO of Junior Achievement USA. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.