24 Hours with AI Transforms the View of the Future of Education and Work

During the long weekend at the beginning of April (3-5 April), I did something I hadn’t done in years: sit in front of a computer screen and look at lines of source code. I’m no stranger to the world of programming. I learned coding in the second year of junior high school and completed my bachelor’s degree in Information Technology at UGM. In my fourth semester of university, I was already earning a salary as a professional software developer. The technology world is not foreign to me. But what I experienced on 3-5 April truly shook my perspective. I tried what is now known as “vibe coding”, a term coined by computer scientist Andrej Karpathy, one of the founders of OpenAI. The concept is simple: you describe what you want to build in everyday language, and artificial intelligence (AI) generates the code for you. Out of curiosity, using an AI tool called Anthropic Claude, I built a web application. An application that I reasonably thought would take 9-12 weeks of work by a team of 10-15 senior software engineers, each earning Rp 30 million to Rp 50 million per month, could be completed alone in less than 24 hours, with only a subscription to AI costing 200 US dollars per month. That moment gave me mixed feelings. On one hand, overflowing excitement: now, anyone with an idea can realise it. We have a machine that works tirelessly and without time limits. On the other hand, a deep sense of dread. Because if I could do the work of 10-15 people alone, that means 10-14 jobs are lost. And this is not blue-collar work. This is white-collar, cognitive work that has long been considered safe from the onslaught of automation. The Wave and the Storm Have Arrived My personal experience is not an anomaly. It is part of a wave of transformation sweeping the entire global technology industry. Data from various sources show the shocking scale of change. According to the World Economic Forum in the Future of Jobs Report 2025, which surveyed more than 1,000 companies representing 14 million workers in 55 economies, it is projected that 92 million jobs will be disrupted by AI and automation by 2030. Although the same report also projects the creation of 170 million new jobs—in reality, the jobs lost and the jobs created are not the same jobs, do not require the same skills, do not pay the same salaries, and are not in the same geographies. In the technology sector itself, data shows a dramatic acceleration. Throughout 2025, more than 245,000 technology workers worldwide were affected by layoffs. According to data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, US technology companies announced more than 33,000 cuts in just the first two months of 2026—an increase of 51% compared to the same period the previous year. The most striking case happened recently. Oracle cut 20,000 to 30,000 positions globally at the end of March 2026, about 18% of its total workforce. Square CEO Jack Dorsey, the US payment app, bluntly stated that these layoffs were driven by increasingly sophisticated AI capabilities, not financial difficulties. A Deeper Threat: The Cognitive Threat However, there is a more dangerous and invisible threat: the loss of thinking ability itself. A study from MIT Media Lab involving 54 participants over four months revealed concerning findings. The researchers asked participants to write essays in three groups: using ChatGPT, using a search engine, and without any technological assistance. Their brain activity was monitored using electroencephalography (EEG). The results: the group using ChatGPT showed the lowest neural activation in key brain areas. Brain connectivity, measured through alpha and theta waves, was almost halved. Even more shocking, 83% of AI users were unable to recall key parts of the essays they had just written themselves. Participants who wrote on their own showed the highest cognitive engagement and memory retention. The MIT researchers concluded that excessive use of AI creates what they call “cognitive debt”. The more mental tasks we delegate to AI, the fewer parts of the brain we use. Another study conducted by a team of researchers from Qatar, Tunisia, and Italy—published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology—introduced the concept of “AICICA” (AI Chatbot Induced Cognitive Atrophy). They hypothesised that excessive dependence on AI chatbots causes broader cognitive decline. The most vulnerable are those who have not yet achieved mastery in their field—especially children and adolescents. SKB of 7 Ministers: A Policy That Comes at the Right Time Amid this increasingly worrying global landscape, the Indonesian government has taken steps. On 12 March 2026, seven ministers signed a Joint Decree (SKB) on Guidelines for the Utilisation and Learning of Digital Technology and Artificial Intelligence in Formal, Non-Formal, and Informal Education. This SKB was initiated by the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Pratikno and signed by the Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian, Minister of Communication and Digital Meutya Hafid, Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Abdul Mu’ti, Minister of Youth and Sports Brian Yuliarto, Minister of Religious Affairs Nasaruddin Umar, Minister of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Arifah Fauzi, and Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs Wihaji. This SKB establishes the principle that AI must be human-centred: a tool to strengthen intellectual capacity, not a replacement that causes a decline in critical thinking. This policy divides AI utilisation zones into three: red zone (totally prohibited for exams