Now, I take a lot of AP classes, and I use AI to streamline my studying. Like Quizlet gives you adaptive practice questions, based on what you get right and wrong. I also use Notion AI as my calendar app and for notes. It’ll scan through all my notes and tell me what page has the answers to a certain question. In May, when I start to study for AP exams, I use that.
I’m a night person—that’s when I study—and I can’t call my teacher at 3 am and ask them to explain something to me. But I can ask Copilot, or Photomath, and it will help me walk it through. I can ask, “Hey, can you explain that one more time?” when I might not feel as comfortable doing that in a classroom.
I feel like in a lot of schools, teachers tell students not to use it. But my generation is very resourceful. If we have the slightest access to something, we’re going to figure out how to use it. Teachers should treat it like anything else: Before you give a kid a bike, or a phone, or internet access, it’s best to just teach them how to use it first. —Gabrielle Watkins, 16, Buford, Georgia
You Can’t Enjoy Making Art If AI Does It for You
As someone that really likes to learn, I’m not a fan of AI, and I’m nervous about how it’s going to be used in the future. Like I’ve seen kids at my school use Grammarly to write essays for them, or use AI to figure out problems for their homework.
I think I was introduced to AI in fifth grade, so I remember a time back when AI was not a thing at all. But my brother is starting seventh grade, and people in his class just put in a math equation and AI solves it for them. It’s crazy how younger groups of people are being influenced by it so quickly.
I’m a visual artist, so hearing how people are using AI to create instant art and music makes me nervous for the future. It took me a while to be able to sketch a face, and it’s crazy to think that people can press a button and all of a sudden, they have the same thing. I wouldn’t feel satisfied if I just typed and it made art for me. The process of thinking it through, feeling like, “my hand hurts but I’m close to finishing”—you can’t enjoy that process if you just use AI to make it for you. —Nora Pai, 14, Manhattan
AI Could’ve Created Utopia, but Capitalism Got in the Way
I first learned about AI from that video of Will Smith eating spaghetti. That video was really bad, but I thought that AI was really cool and would be used for good purposes. But recently something that I’ve thought is how fast it’s been updating. Like in just a few years, it’s nearly identical to real videos. It can be used for a lot of bad things and can have a bunch of negative consequences. At the point where you can’t tell what’s real and what’s fake, there’s a bunch of openings for dangerous people to do dangerous stuff and get away with it.
Something that I’ve thought about is how in most portrayals of AI before it was really good, AI would be the one doing the jobs and making the world run, while humans would be the ones making art. But now that AI is actually being used, it’s quite the opposite. People are using AI to do stuff that they don’t have the patience for, like create art. I think that a lot of movies show one of two outcomes for AI: either one like what’s happening now, where it’s being used to fake stuff and isn’t doing that much to make the world work [better], or one where AI creates a utopia where everything is working fine because of it. That’s how AI should be used. But a bunch of other people thought that this would make a bunch more money, so this is what AI now is. —Finn King, 12, Jacksonville, Alabama
