Why the Great Calculator Debate of the 1980s is still relevant today and how Isaac Asimov got AI right in 1956

Back in the 1980s a debate raged about whether it was okay to let children use calculators in elementary school. Critics warned that giving kids calculators would lead to the "destruction of student math skills." A similar debate is happening today across a range of areas, including coding, writing and even music. Will using AI lead a brain drain across these and many other areas? One of my favorite authors is Isaac Asimov. He's better known for his Foundation and Robot series of books where he contemplates whether an algorithm can successfully predict (and guide) humankind's development and the relationship between super artificial intelligence and humans. In some ways he predicted what we're experiencing today with AI: the rise of powerful, inscrutable artificial machines that are so complex humans can't understand or maintain them. In the short story, "The Last Question" he wrote: "Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough." We're living an age that was once the stuff of science fiction. The question is: what comes next?