I’m really glad this week’s reading was paired with the Harvard EdCast episode about childhood development in the age of AI. It seemed like a perfect mix. Stretch 7 talks about generations and how they were each born into their time’s progression of technology. As much as I don’t trust Aiden Cinnamon Tea, it makes a good point here about these generation’s behaviors based on where society was technologically when they were growing up.

I want to take a moment to talk about the Gen A (or Generation Alpha) section of stretch 7. There seems to be a negative correlation between technological advances and children’s behavior. Aiden says that Gen A has an “IDGAF” energy and that they think authority is absurd. This falls right in line with how some children are being disrespectful to AI just for the hell of it. It’s also worth discussing that the reason children today are engaging with AI is because AI is this generation’s big technological advancement. The impact of computer technology has always proven that newer generations are often out of touch with the real world – and vice versa. New technology is often considered foreign to older generations because they did not grow up with it. Milennials through Gen Alpha, however, are growing up with it.

Now, I can’t help but disagree with the idea that students who use AI to help them with school assignments should keep engaging with it. The podcast discussed the difference between children’s interactions with AI and other humans. When the point was made that children are using ChatGPT when they are stuck on math problems, I couldn’t help but shake my head. I thought to myself, “Why can’t they just watch a YouTube video made by a human explaining a similar problem to them?” AI may be the big advancement of this generation, but it’s by far the least trustworthy. Even the developers of ChatGPT have implemented the disclaimer that responses generated by their own system might not always be accurate.

The gold presented by the podcast lies within the fact that kids are more likely to lead a conversation with a human and ask follow-up questions than with AI. It all goes back to brain-rot and how interactions with humans are overall so much more beneficial for the brain than with AI. This is a clear enough sign that children today shouldn’t rely fully on AI to help with their education, no matter how much or how well it can assist them. If we keep this up, newer generations will use AI more than Gen Alpha already is, and eventually AI might be all they know how to use to help with their education.