The name ‘Einstein’ is synonymous with intelligence.  More than 70 years after the physicist’s death, if someone is called an Einstein, everyone knows they are incredibly smart.

Physics students of lesser intellect struggle with the intricacies of Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity. Many would give their eye teeth for some help from the great man himself.

They need struggle no longer. Einstein has been reincarnated as an agentic AI.

Created by young Indian tech entrepreneur Advait Paliwal, agentic Einstein will help – not only with physics, but with any subject. Einstein is designed to interface with Canvas, a popular online learning platform used by many universities in New Zealand and around the world.

Students give agentic Einstein their Canvas login details and Einstein does the rest. It attends online lectures, reads assigned research papers, and participates in discussion forums.

Best of all, Einstein does a first-rate job on course assessments, all but guaranteeing top marks to even the most indolent and dim-witted students. That frees their time to engage in more productive activities, like scrolling TikTok and litigating minor grievances online.

Some old-school educators are opposed to agentic Einstein. They say that if students don’t do the work for themselves, they won’t learn anything.

That attitude misses the point. In modern youth parlance, learning is ‘just so twentieth century.’

In the age of agentic AI, education is not about learning. Employers simply need to know that graduates are clever enough to outsource their thinking to AI.

At a time when many university students can barely read or write, an A+ grade is a reliable indicator of proficiency with AI. Far from being banned, tools like Einstein should be made compulsory.

Having said that, those Luddite educators may have a pesky point. Despite being a genius, when it came to his school studies, the real Einstein was a typical teenage boy – defiant and inclined to take shortcuts.

Given the chance to use a tool like agentic Einstein, the real Einstein would probably have jumped at it. Had he done so, he may never have acquired the knowledge he needed to complete his great work.

Einstein’s work on quantum theory was vital to the development of transistors and semiconductors, essential components of modern computers.

So, if the real Einstein had used agentic Einstein, agentic Einstein may never have been invented.