Jose Antonio Bowen is introduced as a Renaissance thinker with a jazz soul. His background includes leadership roles at Stanford, Georgetown, and SMU, as well as being the president of Johnstreet College. He is also a jazz musician who has played with legends, a composer with a Pulitzer-nominated symphony, and the author of “Teaching Naked,” 30% off with the code TNT30 at Wiley “Teaching Change,” and “Teaching with AI.” 30% off Teaching Change or Teaching with AI with Code HTWN at JH.
He provided a workshop for us on AI Assignment and Assessments, where he mentioned:
“A map makes you smarter. GPS does not.”
It was such a small, quiet moment, but it cracked open something bigger. Because this wasn’t just about directions. It was about how we’re all starting to think less, remember less, and—if we’re not careful—become less, all thanks to the technology we depend on.
The Decline of Entry-Level Everything
Dr. Bowen shared that Shell, a global energy giant, had laid off nearly 38% of a particular workforce group. Internships? Vanishing. Entry-level jobs? Replaced.
Replaced by what?
Artificial Intelligence
Tasks that used to belong to interns or fresh graduates—writing reports, creating slide decks, analyzing data—are now handled by machines that don’t take lunch breaks or need supervision.
And that’s where the real twist came in: the people who still have jobs? They’re not the ones who can do the task better than AI. They’re the ones who can think better than AI. Who can improve, refine, and oversee what AI produces.
If AI is writing the first draft, the humans left in the room better know how to write the final one—with nuance, clarity, and insight.
Offloading Our Minds, One Task at a Time
Back to that GPS quote. Dr. Bowen called it “cognitive offloading”—how we gradually stop using certain mental muscles because tech is doing the lifting.
We used to memorize phone numbers, navigate with paper maps, even mentally calculate tips at restaurants. Now? We ask Siri.
The scary part isn’t that we’re forgetting how to do these things. It’s what happens when we offload creativity, problem-solving, and thinking itself.
Because if AI can be creative—can write poems, code apps, design marketing plans—what do we do? What’s left for us?
Creativity, Reimagined
But here’s where things got interesting. Dr. Bowen isn’t anti-AI. In fact, he practically gushed about it.
He showed how AI can be used to spark creativity, not stifle it.
He explained how students could upload a 700-page textbook and have the AI turn it into a podcast. A nine-minute podcast. With baseball analogies, if that’s what helps them learn.
He talked about using AI to create personalized assignments: instead of a generic math problem about trains, give a politics student a question about voter turnout rates. Suddenly, they care. Suddenly, they’re engaged.
Because AI isn’t replacing the teacher—it’s becoming the chalk, the blackboard, the entire toolset that a smart educator can use to make learning come alive.
Prompt Like a Pro
Here’s another nugget that stuck with me: prompting isn’t coding. It’s storytelling.
Don’t just ask the AI to “fix your proposal.” Ask it to “transform your proposal into something your provost will love.”
Use emotion. Use intent. Give context. AI, it turns out, responds best when it knows what you’re really trying to say.
The 70% Problem
Still, AI isn’t perfect. Dr. Bowen introduced what he called the “70% problem.”
AI can do a lot of things—but only up to a C-level standard. That’s fine for a rough draft. It’s dangerous for a final product.
If students rely on AI to do the work, and they can’t take it past that 70% mark, then what happens when employers expect more?
The solution? Raise the bar.
What used to be acceptable for a B or C should now earn an F—unless the student can make the AI’s work better, smarter, more human.
From Tools to Teaching Assistants
The future of education, the he argued, is not about banning AI—it’s about designing with it.
He showed how teaching assistants could use AI notebooks filled with chemistry texts to answer student questions on the fly.
How AI can test business plans, simulate presidential decisions, or offer critiques from the perspective of a political opponent.
How students can train AI to “be” Einstein and ask it about thermodynamics at their own pace, in their own language.
AI isn’t replacing teachers—it’s becoming part of the classroom, like textbooks once were.
The Arms Race
Of course, there’s a darker side. AI can cheat. It can take online courses for students, fake typing patterns, even simulate human error.
Dr. Bowen called it an “arms race” between those building smarter AI and those trying to prevent it from being misused.
But even in this, he saw hope.
If educators embrace AI—not as an enemy but as a creative partner—they can design assignments AI can’t complete alone. They can build simulations, storytelling challenges, and editing tasks that require a human mind.
Because at the end of the day, that’s what this moment demands: humans who think more deeply, ask better questions, and create things worth remembering.
Final Words
The session ended with a simple truth:
“AI raises the floor. You must raise the ceiling.”
Whether you’re a student, a teacher, a manager, or a job-seeker, AI is now the baseline.
It will write the first draft, sketch the first idea, solve the first problem.
But it’s still up to us to bring the brilliance.
AI can produce work at a “C” level, which is problematic if students can only perform at that level. Instructors need to raise their standards and expectations. Assignments that would have been considered a “C” should now be evaluated as an “F” if they only meet the level of quality that AI can produce.
Implications
Students need to surpass AI capabilities to be competitive in the job market, especially in fields like coding and writing.
And maybe—just maybe—it’s time we all learned to read the map again.
