Lead:
Dr. Sharif bin Muhammad Al-Atrebi, writing in Al-Jazirah, poses a fundamental question about learning in an age when artificial intelligence delivers answers instantaneously: what remains worth teaching when the answer is free? The question reflects a wider preoccupation across Saudi opinion platforms with how rapid technological change is reshaping human expertise, knowledge work, and institutional authority.
Voices & Positions:
In Al-Jazirah, Dr. Sharif bin Muhammad Al-Atrebi argues that as artificial intelligence renders traditional information-gathering obsolete, education must shift from teaching answers to teaching discernment — distinguishing accuracy from error, identifying what matters, and applying knowledge contextually. The real challenge, he contends, is no longer access but judgment.
In Al-Jazirah, an unsigned analysis on "Marketing by Emotion" contends that brand identity has migrated from logos, color schemes, and sound to the emotional impression a company leaves on audiences. The piece cites Lufthansa's failed sarcastic response to a customer complaint against KitKat, Laughing Cow, and Shawrmer's successful alignment of humor and drama with brand personality, concluding that brand strength today is measured by the feeling audiences associate with it, not its visual markers alone.
In Al-Jazirah, Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Habib reviews Vaclav Smil's *How the World Really Works*, endorsing Smil's refusal to choose between techno-optimism and catastrophic despair. Al-Habib presents Smil's material analysis of energy production, food systems, and genuine environmental risks as an antidote to polarized climate rhetoric.
In Al-Jazirah, Tarad Al-Asmary published a book titled *The Final Pass: The End of Social Media and the Beginning of Intelligent Agents* through Mutoon Publishing in London. The 274-page work, divided into five sections and 29 chapters, examines how decision-making authority is shifting from social media algorithms to artificial intelligences capable of acting on users' behalf.
Tension & Convergence:
All four pieces converge on a single anxiety: human institutions — education, marketing, media, knowledge work — are undergoing structural displacement by automated systems. Yet they diverge sharply on response. Al-Atrebi and Al-Asmary imply acceptance of the shift, focusing instead on what skills or roles persist. The emotion-marketing analysis, by contrast, reasserts a uniquely human domain: feeling. Al-Habib insists expertise and material analysis remain irreplaceable.
Editorial Takeaway:
The dominant voice across these columns is that technology is not the problem; clarity of purpose in a technology-saturated world is.