I have always been a big fan of Asimov, thanks for posting.
But he lived in the days before most could see any light at the end of the tunnel of scarcity.
If we don’t see that in our minds, we can’t see any criticisms of the education system, or the product of it, formal education, being valid.
Is it a good thing, that much of the efforts the brightest minds we’ve ever known, focused on how to maximise profits?
Even now we see the profit driven response, to the profit driven problem of not being prepared for a natural virus attack, and not being able to effectively lock down, is to develop, market and distribute vaccines for profit.
Like the Hurricane response in Puerto Rico, and maintenance of the Arrecibo radio telescope observatory on the same Island, none of it was done as there was no profit in it, so 3000 people died, and a few years later, the telescope has collapsed.
Our response to all events is to ask how profit can be made from it.
So we lose many lives, unnecessarily, and our technological progress is retarded.
The scientific and educational establishments are not immune, they are ultimately profit driven, hence the reason only things with a profitable return are invested in, which leaves out an awful lot of real things worth investigating.
Even Asimov’s robot rules have been ignored, rather than “Thou shalt not kill humans”, what we actually have is “Thou shalt make profit”.
That is the real reason we should maybe fear robots.
Like solar energy, the only real energy source, but no scientist ever admits it, because to use it means the end of scarcity, the very thing needed for profit.
But it is happening anyway, developed mostly by people with unknown education, but obviously very clever, in the development of things like Bitcoin, which are effectively money-as-sunlight.
When we see that, we maybe realise it is way above any politics, in fact probably the end of all politics, since even that is driven by profit, along with colonialism, racism, slavery, and planetary pollution.
Sorry that might sound like a rant, but it is just matter-of-fact truth, which I hope is not too embarrassing.