<p>Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the same time perceived to offer significant opportunities while presenting unprecedented challenges in all forms of education. Maritime education has not been spared and institutions – in particular at the higher levels of education – are having to contend with either reactively responding to the development of AI or proactively developing AI systems for their unique purposes. AI is argued to be, in essence, not merely a pedagogical tool but the latest phase of an autonomous technological system that reorganizes knowledge, cognition, and institutional purpose around efficiency, rather than human values primarily, thereby risking the erosion of education’s human-oriented aims unless consciously resisted and redirected. Based on reflections on the thinking of Jaques Ellul, the 20th Century French philosopher, primarily, as well as others, this opinion piece, while acknowledging the perceived benefits of AI, discusses some of the challenges arising from the apparently inexorable trend toward global deference to AI. This paper focuses on “maritime education” at the higher education level (hence the restriction to “maritime education” and not “maritime education and training”) although the impact of AI at all levels of education and for all economic sectors is acknowledged.</p>