The Amplifier on Morning Radio

This morning I was on Morgunvaktin on Rás 1 with Þórunn Elísabet Bogadóttir. The occasion was a story from Denmark: written-Danish exam grades have fallen, and many were quick to point at AI as the culprit. But correlation is not causation, and the picture is more complicated than the headline.

The gate was never there

What I call access shock is about this: tools that once required years of study have suddenly opened to anyone. People talk as if AI tore down a gate — but the gate was never there. What changed is who gets in, and how fast.

In education this shows up as a temptation: to use the machine as a layer of comfort rather than wield it seriously. If a student lets the machine write for them, they do not learn to write. But it is not the technology that decides that — it is us, and how we organise learning.

The amplifier gives back what you put in

I hold on to the amplifier metaphor. Put noise into an amplifier and turn it up, and you get louder noise. Put in the right tones, and you get them multiplied back. AI amplifies — but it only amplifies what you put in. If the input is thoughtless, the output is loud nonsense.

That is why judgment — knowing what to do, not just how — is the most valuable thing a school can teach when the machine can execute almost anything.

Amplifiable people

In the interview a phrase was born that I want to keep: amplifiable people. Those who know how to put the right tones into the amplifier — to ask the right questions, take responsibility for the outcome, keep humanity at the centre. That is not technical literacy alone. It is judgment, responsibility and curiosity.

This is not about the technology. It is about governance — how we organise our society and our schools. The machine amplifies; we decide what goes into it.

Thank you for the conversation, Þórunn. The recording and fuller notes go into my archive — but the core is this: falling grades are a symptom, not a cause. The question that remains is not "how do we stop the machine" but "how do we raise amplifiable people".