18th C J Koh Professorship Public Lecture
De-skilling, Mis-skilling, Never-skilling: Three Ways to Lose Expertise, and One Way to Keep It
📅 29 October 2026, Thursday
⏰ 2.30pm – 4.30pm (Registration starts at 2pm)
📍 NTU@one-north, Level 3, Auditorium
11 Slim Barracks Rise, Singapore 138664
AI is reshaping how we think, learn, and work, but is it building our capabilities, or eroding them? This lecture unpacks the hidden cost of over-reliance on AI through three distinct lenses:
- De-skilling: When "set it and forget it" convenience causes hard-won skills to fade.
- Mis-skilling: When AI's confident answers train us to trust fluency over accuracy.
- Never-skilling: The silent crisis of an entire generation that never develops critical skills at all, because AI got there first.
The real issue isn't how advanced AI becomes, but how we design the division of labour between people and machines, and the everyday interactions that shape it.
Attendees will gain a clearer understanding of how educators, schools, and policymakers can design AI tools that strengthen and develop human expertise instead of gradually diminishing it.
About Professor Mutlu Cukurova, the 18th Visiting C J Koh Professor
Professor Mutlu Cukurova is the Professor of Learning and Artificial Intelligence at University College London (UCL), where he researches human–AI complementarity in education. His work explores how AI can support learning, particularly learning how to learn and collaborative problem-solving. He also advises organisations including UNESCO, the OECD and the European Commission on AI in education, and is Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Educational Technology.
Learn more about Professor Mutlu Cukurova and his work here.