Fei-Fei Li, the Stanford computer science professor known as the "Godmother of AI," warned that the most serious danger artificial intelligence poses to education is not cheating but the erosion of students' motivation and agency to learn on their own. Speaking on the Huberman Lab podcast released Monday, Li said, "The absolute bad outcome is that our young generation, their agency and human-level motivation of learning and living is taken away by tools." She argued that a generation of graduates who rely heavily on AI may leave school without having "properly developed the brain." Li's warning comes as schools struggle to define boundaries for generative AI, with public conversation centered on academic dishonesty, a concern some educators described as endemic by August 2024. A report from Oxford University Press last year warned that AI makes students faster while costing them depth of thinking, and research by MIT researcher Nataliya Kosmyna found that people using generative AI for essays performed worse over time than those using traditional search engines or no assistance. Vivienne Ming, chief scientist at the Possibility Institute, said most AI users she studied deployed the technology to avoid thinking for themselves. Li, who cofounded World Labs, does not advocate a blanket ban, saying both extremes trouble her. Citing her own experience as a premed student struggling with organic chemistry, she said an AI tutor would have helped her ask more questions while preserving her motivation.