Keynote speaker at the Nobel Laureate Wreath Laying Ceremony, Director of Studies for the School of Arts, Management and Humanities, Dr. Anthea Octave, has warned against an over-reliance on technology, urging Saint Lucians to safeguard human creativity and critical thinking in an increasingly digital world.

“We live in a technologically saturated age where information is abundant and artificial intelligence sits in every student’s pocket. The temptation is to outsource not just our labour, but our thinking,” Dr. Octave said.

She described this convenience as a “dangerous seduction,” noting that the modern world is increasingly packaged into bite-sized consumables and minute-long social media content.

According to Dr. Octave, many teachers lament that students can scroll for hours but struggle to sit with critical and reflective questions for even ten minutes. While they can often repeat what they see online, they are less fluent when asked to articulate their own thinking. In such an environment, she warned, the danger lies in mimicry and homogeneity shaped by other people’s priorities, assumptions, and agendas.

Dr. Octave emphasized that excellence requires human agency, calling for greater investment in the arts. She argued that the arts help to develop imagination, confidence, empathy, and problem-solving skills, qualities that cannot be manufactured by technology.