Learning to Learn from Artificial Intelligence

I bet this sounds strange. Why should we learn from artificial intelligence when artificial intelligence is in fact trying hard to become like us? Isn't our ability to think broadly and abstractly one of the things that in fact gives us an edge over machines? After all, aren't machines simply programmed to do one (or a few) things repeatedly. Sure, they can crunch ridiculous amounts of data, but they do so by following instructions given by us. Where is the learning in all of this?