EdTech

Is Critical Thinking the New Coding?

When Kant urged his readers to "dare to know" in 1784, he was challenging people to stop handing their thinking over to others. More than two centuries later, Helen Rantsevitch asks whether that challenge has ever mattered more. In this article, Helen tests a hypothesis: if coding defined the internet age, critical thinking will define the age of AI. To explore it, she brought together more than a dozen CTOs, educators, recruiters and talent leaders from organisations including Deliveroo, Hays, TCS and The Open University. They rarely agree. Some have all but stopped hiring junior developers. Others say nothing fundamental has changed, because they always hired for curiosity and communication rather than technical skill. Yet one theme keeps returning. As AI writes more of the code, human value lies in judgement: framing the right problem, questioning the output and spotting when the machine is confidently wrong. The piece blends philosophy, real hiring practice and a Socratic challenge for the modern CTO. It is a thoughtful read for anyone shaping the next generation of tech talent.

Helen Rantsevitch