Key points

Early ball manipulation in soccer shows how complex skills build on sensorimotor foundations.

Tools like tennis rackets extend our reach but still depend on the body’s basic perceptual abilities.

Literacy transformed human culture by repurposing vision, yet never replaced talking and listening.

Every time a new technology arrives, we’re told it will replace what we already know. With artificial intelligence (AI), the anxiety is even sharper: Will it make our skills obsolete? Will it change how humans learn at the deepest level?

It will change us—but not by erasing what came before. AI is better understood as a new literacy: another layer of skill that builds on, rather than replaces, the foundations of human development.

The Foundation: Ball Mastery in Soccer

Tom Byer

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