“The implication is pointed. AI’s learning benefits are strongest when the learning is volitional, when the person chooses difficulty because they want to grow, not because an institution requires a deliverable. Inside formal education, where assessment structures reward outputs rather than understanding, AI becomes a shortcut. Outside those structures, where no grade is at stake and the only reward is capability itself, AI becomes a genuine tutor. The problem is not the tool. The problem is the institutional architecture surrounding it, which was already measuring the wrong things and rewarding the wrong behaviours before AI arrived.”