The ability to think has never been nurtured nor valued by the education system much, passing exams with high grades was.

That was always the goal and what the adult world would rate anyway.

And that meant that memory and repetition ended up being the core of the education system and it works very well from law to very advanced math where memorizing proofs and substitution rules is most of the curriculum anyway.

Problem solving, critical thinking, these things never really showed up or were valued by the system.

It was always the grades.

So a system that has emphasized the wrong metrics has always been gamified. AI is only speeding this gamification.