Jose Roberto ‘Robbie’ Guevara
Robbie Guevara is well known to ACE Aotearoa. He is an educator with extensive experience in adult, community and popular education with a focus on education for sustainable development and global citizenship education. Robbie is an Associate Professor at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia and he is the President of the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE). Robbie was inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame in October 2012 for his contribution to adult learning in the Asia-Pacific region.
Robbie chose to merge his presentation with the following panel discussion, featuring Lara Draper (General Manager – Adults and Seniors, Deaf Aotearoa) and Peter-Clinton Isaac Foaese (President, Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education). But before the panel took the stage, Robbie set the tone with an invitation to reframe our thinking about artificial intelligence—and intelligence more broadly.
Rather than seeing AI as a destination—“the crossing of a bridge”—Robbie encouraged us to view it as a bridging process: something fluid, evolving, and responsive to our learning journeys. He introduced a conceptual framework of Five AIs, each representing a different dimension of intelligence that we navigate and draw upon.
1. Academic Intelligence
Robbie’s first exposure to “AI” came through traditional education. Trained as an environmental scientist, he was always reminded by his mentors — “do not let your schooling get in the way of your education.” This early foundation grounded his view of intelligence as something deeper than credentials alone. His early work with an environmental NGO in the Philippines involved designing a grassroots environmental education curriculum, where his initial motivation was to bring science to the people. But he soon realised that these communities had their own environmental knowledge, that he had to learn from.
2. Andragogical Intelligence
A surprising career turn saw Robbie “run away with the circus”—literally - when he spent a year with a community theatre group travelling around the Philippines. During this time he saw the power of non-formal education, and he developed andragogical intelligence: the understanding of how adults learn. Designing participatory and creative learning experiences, especially for grassroots communities, highlighted the diversity of learning styles and cultural expectations. It underscored that adult education must flex and adapt to context and experience.
3. Ancestral Intelligence
Robbie’s third lens, ancestral intelligence, invited reflection on the limitations of science and formal education when removed from cultural context. It recognises the knowledge, values, and practices passed through generation —a deep intelligence often overlooked in Western paradigms. For Robbie, this intelligence was essential to restoring balance in how we define and engage with learning not just “about” our environment, but “for” our environment.
4. Artificial Intelligence
Robbie then reflected on the main conference theme - artificial intelligence—the most recent “AI.” Like the other speakers, he cautioned against blind adoption. He reminded us that AI can replicate and reinforce the biases and assumptions baked into its data. To illustrate this, Robbie shared an AI-generated image based on seemingly neutral prompts. The result? A stereotyped, assumption-laden visual that revealed as much about the biases of the inputs as the limitations of the tool itself.
5. Adaptive Intelligence
The final—and arguably most crucial—form of intelligence Robbie introduced was adaptive intelligence: our ability to assess, integrate, and apply the other four AIs. This is the space where we, as learners and educators, make meaning. Adaptive intelligence is where we negotiate complexity and change, drawing on the strengths of each perspective to navigate, but also co- create our future.
Together, the session underscored that intelligence is not static or singular. Whether inherited, learned, technological, or responsive, intelligence is a process of bridging—one that, with care and reflection, can lead us to richer, more inclusive futures.