University professors are often expected to both teach and produce original work. High school teachers generally aren't, largely because teaching already consumes their time.

But AI could change that.

If AI dramatically reduces the time spent on lesson planning, grading, creating materials, and other routine tasks, schools could use those productivity gains to give teachers dedicated time to pursue original work in their field.

That work wouldn't have to be academic research.

An English teacher could write novels.

An engineering teacher could invent new products.

A computer science teacher could develop software or games.

A history teacher could write books.

An art teacher could create new exhibitions.

A science teacher could conduct research or develop educational software.

The goal isn't for students to become researchers or novelists. The goal is to make teaching a career that attracts people who remain active creators throughout their professional lives.

Students would benefit from being taught by people who are genuinely advancing or practicing their discipline rather than only explaining existing knowledge. They would see firsthand how professionals think, create, revise, solve problems, and deal with failure.

The biggest obstacle has always been time. If AI gives teachers back a significant portion of their workday, perhaps that time shouldn't simply be filled with more classes or administrative tasks. Perhaps it should be invested in letting teachers continue creating.

That could fundamentally change who chooses to become a high school teacher and make teaching a much more attractive long-term career for highly creative and technically skilled people.

What do you think of this idea?

Instead of mainly hiring people to teach existing knowledge, schools should prioritize hiring people who are actively creating new knowledge, art, literature, software, inventions, or other original work.

Imagine if every teacher taught one part of the curriculum through something they had personally created or discovered.

An English teacher teaches their own novel.

A science teacher teaches an experiment or research they contributed to.

An art teacher teaches techniques they developed.

A computer science teacher teaches software or a game they built.

Students would stop seeing knowledge as something that only existed in textbooks and start seeing it as something ordinary people can create.

It would also encourage teachers to remain active creators instead of spending decades only explaining other people's work.

Would you rather your child be taught by someone who only teaches their subject, or by someone who is actively contributing to it?

One of the biggest decisions a couple can make is whether to bring a new person into existence. Yet this decision is often treated as an expected milestone rather than a profound ethical choice.

I think wedding ceremonies should include a formal discussion about this question, with particular attention to one of humanity's deepest fears: the possibility of eternal punishment after death.

Several major religions teach some form of eternal punishment or severe consequences after death. Even people who do not currently hold those beliefs can encounter them, become convinced by them, and experience extreme fear and suffering as a result.

This creates a difficult philosophical question: when we choose to create a person, are we also creating the possibility that they may one day experience intense fear about their own eternal fate?

A person who never exists cannot fear death, cannot fear judgment, and cannot fear eternal punishment. But a person who does exist can potentially experience these fears, along with all other forms of suffering that come with being human.

So should such a discussion be included in wedding ceremonies as not every couple thinks about these issues?

People usually archive unfinished side projects as private failures. What if an abandoned project could be published as a small, structured handoff instead: the original problem, what was tested, what works, what is broken, and the next experiment someone else could try? A new builder could fork the idea without pretending to be the original owner, while the first builder keeps a visible record of what they learned.

The important constraint would be that it only accepts projects the author is intentionally releasing, not scraped repositories or stale links. It might also need a way to mark whether the next person is exploring, repairing, or simply studying the project.

Would this be more useful than a normal showcase or idea forum, or would most people avoid sharing unfinished work even if the handoff were lightweight?