First, it showed the media’s growing appetite to frame AI as something to fear, to fight, to pick a side on. “We all know how hated social media is… so look what’s even worse now…” is a very telling, but unfortunate, editorial choice.

It’s perhaps understandable for an industry whose business model is being disrupted by the very technology it’s covering. But we need better right now. We need clear, well-considered arguments to move us forward.

But here’s the bigger problem with that narrative: The idea that people dislike AI more than social media fundamentally misses the point that AI drives much, if not all, of what we actually experience on those very social media platforms.

Social media isn’t competing with AI. Social media is AI.

Say What? Let’s Break it Down…

That feed you’re scrolling? It’s not organized chronologically or randomly—it’s a ranking model trained on billions of interactions, predicting what will keep your eyes on the screen longest. Every time you linger on a post half a second longer than another, you’re feeding an algorithm. It’s AI, and it’s extraordinarily good at keeping us hooked.

Those ads that feel eerily relevant? The ones that make you think your phone must be listening? It’s not listening—it’s something more precise. AI systems are cross-referencing your behavior, location patterns, purchase history, and the content you interact with to build a targeting profile and serve you exactly what you’re statistically likely to click. A precise mathematical event, not a coincidence.

The recommendations work the same way—the “you might also like,” the suggested follows, the autoplay next video. All driven by deep learning models that have studied what people “like you” consumed next.

Content moderation at scale is impossible without AI. The posts that get flagged, the accounts suspended, the comments that quietly disappear—those decisions are being made largely by machines, not humans.

And the content itself is increasingly AI-assisted. Captions, thumbnails optimized for click-through, even suggestions around the best time to post are often used by creators who don’t realize they are “using AI.”

Some creators aren’t even human. AI bot profiles are proliferating across every major platform. Users believe they’re engaging with a real person. Often, they’re not.

Perhaps most mind-bending of all: every interaction you have, including every like, linger, comment, and scroll, is a data point being fed back to make the platform’s AI even smarter. Including the very chatbots so many people are busy arguing against right now.

It’s Similar With Schools…

As the debate on AI heats up, the situation in education mirrors the broader confusion almost exactly.

In a typical US school district, there can be thousands of different apps in use. A yearly study by Instructure has found that districts are using up to 3,000 tools across classrooms and administrative systems. That number alone should reframe how we think about this debate. Increasingly, the majority of these tools also rely on AI working quietly in the background.

What’s changed is that AI is no longer arriving as a headline feature—it has become part of the core infrastructure of educational technology itself. It’s shaping how student data is processed and analyzed, how content is selected and sequenced, how feedback is generated, and how learning pathways are personalized to individual students.

Platforms like Google Classroom, Canvas, and Khan Academy already embed adaptive algorithms that adjust what a student sees based on their prior performance. AI flags struggling students before a teacher may notice. It grades writing drafts, suggests resources, and tracks engagement patterns across entire schools.

Most public discourse gets stuck on chatbots, such as whether students should use ChatGPT for an assignment. But that’s a narrow lens on a much larger reality.

The fact that AI that systematically underpins nearly all modern edtech today is the conversation that deserves equal, if not more, serious attention right now.

None of this is inherently bad. These tools, used well, can extend what a skilled teacher can do for students. But it does mean that those who are calling to “remove AI from the classroom” are (even unknowingly) really suggesting we should eliminate much of modern technology from the classroom altogether.

That’s a position that can be defensible, but it’s worth being honest about first.

The truth is that there’s a compelling case to be made for protected, structured “human only” time within a school day. Not as a rejection of technology, but as a deliberate investment in something AI cannot replicate: unmediated human connection, unstructured thinking, and the kind of slow, relational learning that is foundational to how children grow.

If anything, the more AI pervades the environment, the more intentional we need to be about preserving those spaces. And that should be something that everyone can get behind...

Reese Witherspoon and How it’s Gone Wrong

If we don’t understand the big picture related to AI, we risk having the wrong arguments and conversations. And this is something we should be far more concerned about right now.

A telling recent example: Reese Witherspoon made a public comment encouraging women to start using and understanding AI. It was, by most reasonable readings, a straightforward call for empowerment.

But because Witherspoon operates in an industry already bruised by legitimate concerns about creative ownership, digital copyright, and AI-generated content displacing human work, the response was swift and harsh. Writers and creators came for her in a big way.

It’s understandable. The concerns in that industry are real and worth serious debate. But what followed wasn’t really that debate. It was the same binary pro vs. against AI that lacks nuance and deep thinking. And it played out on social media no less—which, as we established, is itself an AI-curated environment.

The algorithm surfaces the most emotionally charged responses, amplifies the most extreme voices, drowns out the nuance—and around and around we go being controlled by the very thing that some suggest they want eliminated. 🤦‍♀️

We Have to Get Back on Track

This is what going off track looks like in practice. Real concerns—about labor, creative rights, the pace of change—get flattened into a slogan. Nuance gets punished out of the conversation. And the people who most need to be part of a thoughtful dialogue get drowned out by the loudest, most contentious voices.

Our recent societal, online-fueled penchant for “cancellation” is scaring off diverse voices and ironically leading us down the path to an AI future none of us wants.

We are not going to argue our way out of this moment with oversimplifications. The technology is already woven into the fabric of how we communicate, how our children learn, and how information reaches us.

The question was never really “AI or no AI.” It’s always been: who shapes it, who benefits from it, and who gets a voice in deciding?

If we don’t start having that conversation, we all lose. And this isn’t a debate between opposing groups—it never was. It’s about all of us, as humans, figuring out how we best live alongside the machines we all have spent decades building together.

That’s the conversation worth having. And we’re running out of time to have it.

Also This Week

On the Topic of AI in Schools…

I was lucky to participate in the effort to shape New York City Schools’ recently released AI guidance. It was a meaningful first step in beginning to put structures and guardrails around AI use in the nation’s largest school system—and I’m grateful for the insight it provided to me on how that dialogue is being shaped.

As part of the AI Advisory Council, I joined more than one hundred educators, administrators, academics, nonprofit leaders, and industry experts in weighing in on the document the city released.

What struck me most about the experience was the genuine good faith effort of different stakeholders to work through concern, hope, disagreement, and all the sticky issues that a fast-moving technology represents—without pretending the answers were simple. I talked a bit more about that experience on a recent podcast if you want to dig deeper into what I learned.

Let’s all get talking about this more. What are your thoughts?

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Altman wrote a blog post in response and it illustrates how unreasonable the current climate has become.

Incredibly, it seems that the most immediate danger with respect to AI is the narrative surrounding the innovation, not the actual technology itself. Dystopian stories, amplified by social media and stoked by mainstream coverage, are proving far more volatile than any algorithm. There’s also a particular irony to the fact that social media (a technology with a well-documented trail of real harm) is a primary accelerant here.

And yet the core idea at the center of all this fear—that someone like Sam Altman is doing this to us—is misguided. It is not the technology that will determine our future, it’s what WE do with it. The problem is that too many of us have come to believe we have no say in the matter at all. And that belief alone will affect a future world with AI.

The Power of Narratives

As humans, we reach for narratives to help us understand who we are and where we want to go. Generally, there is a balance between what we individually believe to be true and how the perspectives around us shape our thinking. But there have been times when that balance has tipped badly—say, during the Covid-19 pandemic or in the aftermath of 9/11. Destructive narratives tend to rush in precisely when we feel most confused, and they spread like a contagion. Think McCarthyism or the Salem Witch Trials.

Instinctively, we know the difference between healthy caution and quiet surrender. But those defenses weaken on unfamiliar terrain, especially when our children’s futures feel as if they hang in the balance.

In the case of AI, nearly everything that is broken about how we communicate—who gets amplified, what gets rewarded, whose voices dominate—has converged all at once. That dysfunction is the real problem. And the good news is that it is one we have far more power to address than most of us realize.

Why We’ve Gone Off Track

AI is increasingly part of every platform we use—and we’ve been marching toward this more advanced form of automation for decades. From email to movie recommendations and GPS, the foundations of AI have been part of our lives for years.

But it is precisely this pervasiveness, combined with rapid new advancements and the potential for Big Tech to profit enormously, that has pushed many of us into a passive sense of powerlessness.

Too many voices are competing to shape the narrative at a moment when only clickbait and drama seem to break through. But this noise also drowns out some of the technology’s most remarkable achievements. From AlphaFold, the AI program that predicts protein structure, which won the Nobel Prize to Google’s AI-powered flood forecasting which has expanded to cover 100 countries and 700 million people with a seven-day accuracy window—the list of accomplishments utilizing AI advancements is already breathtaking.

We’re also missing the perspectives of a more diverse set of thinkers. Mainstream coverage tends to recycle the same handful of commentators, and more measured, nuanced perspectives often go unheard. It is worth seeking those out.

I recommend academic Shannon Vallor’s book The AI Mirror as a thoughtful, pragmatic look at AI and our role in shaping it.

is also a great community directory of AI-themed Substack accounts written by women from around the world. The group also recently published an anthology entitled AI Everywhere, Volume 1: How Women Are Changing The World With Artificial Intelligence.

The important point is: the more perspectives we engage with the better the chance we feel empowered and not powerless.

A Million Small Decisions

It can be far more useful to think of AI not as a force bearing down on us, but as a series of small, interlocking decisions we make every day—decisions we fully control.

At school, the question is no longer whether AI will be present, but how thoughtfully it is used. Used well, it can be a patient tutor for students, a time-saver for teachers, and a subject worth understanding in its own right.

And the counterintuitive truth is that the skills that make AI most useful (careful reasoning, clear writing, the ability to ask a good question) are also best developed away from screens.

At work, the more useful question is not whether AI will change your industry, but which parts of your specific role it will affect—and when. Most of us have more runway than the headlines suggest, and getting familiar with these tools firsthand is well within reach.

At home, the same logic applies. Smart speakers, recommendation algorithms, and adaptive learning apps are already woven into daily family life. The families who navigate this era best will be the ones who engage with it consciously: trying the tools their kids are using, modeling healthy skepticism, and making small, deliberate choices rather than defaulting to whatever the algorithm serves up next.

Diving into the discussion with your kids is also a great start and I’ve collated a list of conversation starters here:

AI and Kids

AI Conversation Starters With Kids That Aren't Too *Cringe*

Talking to your five-year-old about AI looks very different from discussing it with a teenager, of course. What fascinates a middle schooler might bore an elementary school student, and what feels age-appropriate for a high schooler could overwhelm a younger child…

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3 months ago · 1 like · Shannon Kimberly Edwards

An important thought to hold on to: those who are most skeptical of AI and those who are most enthusiastic about it tend to agree on far more than either side acknowledges. Both want their kids to think clearly, to be resilient, and to lead meaningful lives.

The path that runs through this is knowing ourselves well—and that has always required stepping away from the noise long enough to listen.

AI is not happening to us. We are happening to it, one small decision at a time. And by recognizing this as a society we hopefully can prevent more of those in the AI industry from having their lives put at risk.

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Nothing tells us more about the future of a technology rooted in human thought and behavior than the perspectives of those at the top of their game. In this case, it’s mom, researcher, business leader, and PhD Jodi Davenport.

I met Jodi through a women’s group I joined to discuss AI. What struck me about this cognitive scientist and researcher was how nuanced and expansive her view of AI was—and how much importance she placed on cultivating a well-rounded mind.

Currently, Jodi is Vice President of Learning Sciences and Technology at WestEd and Deputy Director of the Regional Educational Laboratory, Northwest. She leads cross-agency strategy and initiatives that help educators and systems thoughtfully integrate digital tools. She also conducts large-scale research projects and advises state education leaders.

But more importantly, Jodi is a mom and advocate for the type of diverse, expansive, and very human learning that will ensure our kids can compete in the future.

On AI With Jodi Davenport

Tell me about your background…

My interest in technology started in third grade when my parents brought home a “portable” COMPAQ computer. In the back of the manual were instructions for programming in BASIC, and I started tinkering. My first program was to get the computer to play Mary Had a Little Lamb, and something about giving a machine instructions and having it do something just clicked for me.

At UCLA, I started off undeclared until I took the intro to cognitive science class. I remember discussing the nature of intelligence (a virus can trick our cells to replicate itself - is that intelligence?) and learning about how our brain uses shortcuts that are functional in navigating the world but can lead to errors (e.g. optical illusions or faulty logic). I was so excited to have found a field that connected human cognition, artificial intelligence, philosophy, and culture all at once and had the chance to work in a lab using neural nets to model how people recognize objects and reason analogically. Those early experiences led me to MIT for my PhD studying attention, memory, and perception, and a postdoc at Carnegie Mellon’s Human Computer Interaction Institute and Psychology Department where I got to apply learning science to designing instructional systems. 

After my postdoc, I joined WestEd and have led large-scale research projects, directed a Department of Education-funded center on math cognition and instruction across five institutions, and supported state education leaders in evidence-based decision making and implementing best practices. When generative AI went mainstream at the end of 2023, it felt like a lot of threads I’d been following for years hit an inflection point. I currently oversee our learning science and technology portfolio and support AI implementation both internally and with our partners.

How do you feel about AI innovation entering our lives?

A friend described it as a “terrible, beautiful thing,” which aptly describes my feelings as I oscillate between extreme enthusiasm and panic.

The curiosity side of me finds it exciting. Things that used to require deep technical expertise and serious computing power are now accessible to anyone with a phone. You can build a website in minutes, a custom app in less than an hour, not to mention find a random replacement part for your dishwasher or diagnose why your plant is turning yellow. That shift has happened faster than most of us expected.

But I think about the cognitive risks a lot. Confirmation bias is already baked into how our brains work. We’re wired to seek out information that confirms what we already believe, and it’s genuinely harder to look for evidence that challenges us. A system that validates your thinking and keeps generating more “evidence” for what you already believe can quietly make that worse in ways you don’t notice.

I also worry about the illusion of understanding. There’s solid research showing that when people encounter a clear, fluent explanation, they feel like they understand something more deeply than they actually do. That feeling is not the same as learning. Real learning is biological and it takes time. The neural pathways only change with repetition and deliberate practice.

Overall, my take is that we don’t really have the option to decide whether AI will enter our lives, as it’s going to affect nearly every part of our society.  We can learn how to work with the tools in ways that complement but don’t replace our thinking and strive to maintain and protect our values.

We talked a bit about “how kids learn” and what it means to “think.” What are your thoughts as an expert?

AI is different from other tools in education because it both lends itself to being used as a tool that can support (or detract from) learning, but will also fundamentally shift the kinds of work people will be doing in the future. 

I don’t see the goal of education as getting knowledge into students’ heads so they can recite back that knowledge when prompted. Ideally it’s to teach students how to think. It’s to have them learn to ask the right questions, solve problems that matter to them, and be able to evaluate whether something worked.

Core competencies or “durable skills,” critical thinking, collaboration, metacognition, adaptability, have gone by different names over the years but are the underpinning of what we want our students to develop. These competencies aren’t built from just accessing information, but wrestling with ideas and working with other people. 

What will be required to educate our kids so they can thrive in the future?

Students need opportunities to practice the competencies we want them to develop. That is, practice making decisions based on potentially conflicting information, practice working with different kinds of people to get things done, practice asking the right questions and questioning the answers. 

If we want them to thrive in a world where they’ll be interacting with AI, we should also be educating them about how the systems work, how their own thinking works, and give them opportunities to practice working with the systems in ways that preserve their agency, values, and mental health. 

What are you most excited about related to AI innovation and education? And most worried about?

What excites me most is access. If you’re curious about something, you no longer have to wait for the right teacher, the right library, or the right zip code. The ability to learn, create, and work on real problems in your own community is increasingly available to people who never had it. 

What worries me is whose values end up baked into these systems. If the primary design goal is engagement or profit, the tools get optimized for that, not for human flourishing. I want a world where people feel connected and have real agency over their futures. The risk of widespread displacement without real inclusion in this new economy is something I don’t think we’re discussing enough yet.

You mentioned to me that art was even more important now. Can you elaborate?

Creating art is a core human endeavor. Art isn’t really about making pretty pictures, it’s about having a perspective. It’s about making choices that reflect something uniquely yours: how you’re interpreting the world, what patterns you’re noticing, what you’re trying to say.

In a world where AI is increasingly making the default a synthesized version of everyone else’s output, the capacity to bring something genuinely your own to the process becomes more valuable. And I think there’s something worth protecting about making things just for the joy of making them, not for a grade or an outcome.

What wisdom would you share with parents about how to think about preparing kids academically and emotionally for the future?

Model curiosity more than you talk about it. Say “I don’t know that, yet” and mean it. Let your kids see you encounter something you don’t understand and seek out more information. That lands differently than any conversation about growth mindset.

Ask more questions than you give answers. Not “AI is good” or “AI is bad” but: how would you know if this output is useful? How would you verify it? What might be missing here? Getting kids in the habit of asking those questions until they become automatic is some of the most useful preparation you can give them.

The kids who will do well in this world are the ones who feel like they have a say about their own futures, and don’t feel that things are just happening to them. That starts with the adults around them actually modeling what that looks like.

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The *good* news is that the picture regarding AI’s current and future impact is starting to come into focus. And while that doesn’t mean there are any definitive answers, we do have much more information available to make the right decisions for our families.

Leaning into the Uncomfortable Truth

It goes without saying that nothing we are hearing about the future of work is easy to take in. Maybe you realize your job is most vulnerable. Or your teen is passionate about pursuing a field that is shrinking. Maybe it’s because you don’t feel confident in the data or the narrative being shared.

But we can pay attention to all of it while ultimately deciding for ourselves how to address these facts. The future will require even more personal agency—ironically—than ever before. But we must lean into the information and go through that process of deciding next steps.

Most recently, Anthropic (parent company of Claude AI) published a comprehensive jobs report. It’s part of a larger study they released recently, but it is remarkably clear in its simplicity. This chart alone paints a much clearer picture than we’ve had previously:

As clearly labeled: blue represents the potential Anthropic sees in specific job categories, and red shows where AI’s impact has already been observed.

For some sectors, the impact has been immediate; for others, the decline in opportunities will be slower. The tech industry, for instance, has already seen a tremendous impact.

Former presidential candidate, NYC mayoral candidate, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang was far more blunt in his assessment of what he thinks comes next. And if we’re all honest with ourselves, it’s pretty clear he’s spot on.

Andrew Yang Newsletter

The End of the Office

I write this filled with sadness…

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3 months ago · 940 likes · 12 comments · Andrew Yang

Watching for the Invisible Impact

The important thing to note is that we won’t necessarily observe the impact of these workplace shifts in the same way we might expect. “Replacement” of workers doesn’t automatically mean economic wobbles in the companies that employ them—so job losses won’t necessarily map to broader economic decline.

For instance, last week Block laid off 40% of its staff “because of AI.” There is some debate about whether that’s literally true, but what’s most notable is that CEO Jack Dorsey made these cuts while the company’s performance remained robust.

This makes the potential for loss here more “invisible” if we aren’t paying attention. This piece in explains the impending scenario well:

The Good News: Job Categories That Will Remain Static or Even Grow

There are job categories that will be in demand in the near term, and others we can reasonably hypothesize will remain robust further into the future.

Right now, for instance, there is a severe shortage of electricians—a current deficit of about 300,000—as data centers need to be built. It’s an immediate need that could prove a ready opportunity for any willing and able young person today.

Trades overall will also continue to be a category with “low exposure” to AI—electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians. These roles require physical dexterity in unpredictable, unstructured environments: crawling through walls, improvising in tight spaces, diagnosing problems with all five senses. Any risk of robots taking over these complex tasks is decades away.

The other “safe” jobs are those requiring in-person human touch, or those in categories that will grow as we have more time to focus on our health and well-being once AI takes over more operational tasks.

A few examples:

• Therapists/counselors. While AI can simulate human connection, it isn’t authentic and can’t replace the trust and lived emotional experience that humans bring.

• Primary care & emergency physicians. AI is excellent at pattern recognition in diagnostics, but physical examination, real-time judgment in chaotic emergencies, patient communication, and legal and ethical accountability make full replacement implausible for the foreseeable future.

• Early childhood educators. Young children need physical presence, emotional attunement, and responsive human caregiving to develop properly. The role is part educator, part caregiver, part emotional regulator—and parents overwhelmingly want humans doing this work.

• Custom craftspeople/artisans (furniture makers, glassblowers, jewelers). The “made by human hands” story will only grow in value as the world becomes more automated.

• Athletic trainers/coaches. Effective coaching is about motivation, real-time physical observation, emotional intelligence, and relationship. Elite performance depends on a coach who knows a person’s psychology and history—AI tools will support this work but won’t own it.

• Veterinarians. Diagnosing and treating animals that can’t describe their symptoms requires hands-on physical examination, pattern recognition across species, and surgical skill. The combination of physical, cognitive, and interpersonal demands—including managing anxious pet owners—is highly complex to automate.

These are just a few examples, but the common thread is clear: the jobs that hold up best against AI share some combination of physical unpredictability, genuine human emotional presence, real-world accountability, and trust-based relationships. AI will become a powerful tool in most of these fields—but it won’t replace the need for human beings.

And that represents both an opportunity for our children and a reason for hope: a future where we can focus more on our very human needs.

Guiding Teens and Young Adults

I have two high school students, both heading to college over the next two years. This has been my guidance to them:

• Understand the “language” of technology. Seek to gain firm footing in math (particularly statistics, probability, and algebra) and computer science (coding, algorithms). In the case of computer science, this doesn’t mean mastery; it means understanding the language and how it works.

• Master the classics. Many experts agree that a well-rounded liberal arts education—even when combined with other subjects—will be a competitive advantage. The broad context that comes with a wide knowledge base will make engaging with AI even more fruitful.

• Find an outlet for creativity. Firing on both sides of one’s brain is an important exercise for the future. Painting, writing, building—all of these will continue to be important endeavors to training our brains.

• Consider having a trade in your back pocket. For those of us who remember wood shop, metal shop, or cooking class, there is real upside in acquiring a skill that can be both useful and a source of income. And that doesn’t mean setting the classics aside—the two complement each other well.

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It’s not a new concept, of course, but it may be the one that most determines how well we adapt to AI, and who is best positioned to thrive in the years ahead.

Information overload and chronic distraction have become afflictions we recognize but rarely take seriously. We often act as if they are personality quirks rather than significant intellectual and societal debts that we’re only beginning to reckon with.

At the same time, we’re quick to blame AI for eroding critical thinking. But AI is a tool; and like any tool, getting the most out of it requires bringing your best self to it. That means showing up with your attention intact, your thinking clear, and your judgment sharp.

Most of us aren’t doing that. In fact, before I even finished writing this piece, a study began recirculating about the impact of short-form video on cognition. It confirmed that social media reels are having exactly the negative effect on our thinking that we fear they are.

Which is precisely what makes learning to strategically ignore the right things so powerful.

Junk Food for the Brain

The importance of protecting ourselves from distraction is far from new. In 1890, psychologist William James wrote that “the art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” He also argued that “…the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will.”

What’s changed isn’t human nature—it’s the scale of what we’re up against. The volume of distractions competing for our attention has multiplied, and so has the number of people and companies who profit from our fractured focus.

AI has made this significantly worse. For anyone whose livelihood depends on clicks and engagement, it has never been easier and cheaper to flood the digital realm with content designed to grab attention rather than inform.

Digital “slop” (a term I’ve written about previously) is the inevitable result: low-quality, algorithmically-optimized content that functions less like information and more like junk food for the brain. Empty, abundant, and hard to stop consuming…

We only have so much time, energy, and mental capacity available to us on a daily basis and we need to use it wisely.

As noted by the Montreal Ethics Institute: “As AI slop floods digital ecosystems, critical ignoring, choosing what not to engage with, emerges as a missing layer of AI literacy.”

The Power of Strategic Focus

The concept of Critical Ignoring was introduced in a November 2022 paper titled “Critical Ignoring as a Core Competence for Digital Citizens.” Ironically, it was published around the same time ChatGPT launched—ushering in a new era of distraction, and raising the stakes considerably for those who can learn to spend their mental energy wisely.

“Digital literacy and critical thinking should include a focus on the competence of critical ignoring: choosing what to ignore, learning how to resist low-quality and misleading but cognitively attractive information, and deciding where to invest one’s limited attentional capacities.” — “Critical Ignoring as a Core Competence for Digital Citizens,” Current Directions in Psychological Science

The great news is that being more strategic about how we spend our brain power is a relatively straightforward exercise available to all of us.

A few suggestions:

1. Reduce Exposure to Triggers & Distractions

This isn’t about going off the grid. It’s about designing your environment (and your kids’) the way an athlete designs their training. A few places to start:

• Delete by intention. Identify the two or three apps you open out of habit rather than purpose and delete them. If you find yourself reaching for them anyway, that reflex alone tells you something.

• Try grayscale. A surprisingly effective and underused trick: switching your phone to black and white to remove the visual stimulation that makes apps feel rewarding to open. On iPhone: Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters. Toggle on “Color Filters” and select “Grayscale.”

• Turn off non-essential notifications. Most notifications exist merely to pull you back into an app. Go app by app in your settings and disable anything that isn’t genuinely time-sensitive. The bar for what counts as essential is probably lower than you think.

• Use screen time limits for yourself too. These tools aren’t just for kids. Set hard daily limits on the platforms most likely to pull you into a mindless scroll, and treat the limit as a rule rather than a suggestion.

2. Pause Before Reacting and Sharing

We’ve all been there: you read a headline, your blood pressure spikes, you fire off a text to a friend or reach for the reply button. But headlines are written to trigger exactly that response. Before you invest emotional energy (let alone your reputation) in a story, take sixty seconds to ask a few simple questions:

• Who published this, and what’s their incentive?

• What’s the primary source?

• Is there context I’m missing?

This is an especially worthwhile exercise when a story confirms what you already believe, or when the counter-narrative feels personally uncomfortable. That discomfort is frequently a signal that the information is worth sitting with longer. The flip side of critical ignoring is knowing what deserves your full attention—and content that challenges you almost always does.

This isn’t just a “nice to do.” It’s a foundational thinking skill; and one that will directly shape how well you work with the AI tools that are rapidly becoming part of everyday life.

The people who ask better questions, challenge their assumptions, and resist the pull of the first narrative they encounter are going to get far more out of these technologies than those who don’t. Critical thinking isn’t becoming less relevant in an AI-driven world. It’s becoming the thing that matters most.

3. Understand the Business Model (and Your Role in It)

Engagement is the currency of the attention economy. Every like, share, comment, and outraged reply is a transaction—and the profit flowing to these companies comes directly at the expense of our time, our focus, and increasingly, our wellbeing.

Social media interaction can feel empowering; like you’re part of a conversation that matters. But the architecture of these platforms is specifically designed to make you feel that way while your attention is simultaneously harvested for advertising revenue and algorithmic reach. The feeling of participation is the product.

The practical implication is simple: before you engage, ask who benefits. The answer is almost never you.

But here’s what’s easy to forget in all of this—we are not powerless. In fact, the opposite is true. Every personal, individual, incremental decision we make about where to direct our attention is an act of agency.

Taken alone, these choices quietly reshape our own lives. Taken together, they have the power to change the economics, the incentives, and ultimately the culture that shaped them in the first place. That’s not a small thing. That’s how the future gets written…

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Have you grabbed your copy of AI for Families yet? If not, you are in luck, I’m now able to offer a discount for subscribers! Click here for a subscriber-only link.

Of course I needed to probe just a tiny bit to understand what was making her so uncomfortable. And what was clear is that it wasn’t the technology per se. She was quite confident about the fact that AI would “meaningfully find its way” into her work. The problem was the news and the industry figures making decisions about AI and the future.

The good news is that many of us are finding our way to the things we like or don’t like about AI. We’re doing this naturally by using the platforms. Also good news is that Big Tech needs our adoption/approval/love and admiration. There is no meaningful way to generate revenue via these platforms if the general public doesn’t want any part of it.

The bad news is that they are terrible at courting consumers. I mean, if this was about dating we all would swipe left…

Signs That Our Relationship with the AI Industry is Like Dating (Badly)

🤖 Leaders Warning of Dystopia While…Creating it

What is particularly maddening right now is the way in which some industry leaders like to wax on about the dangers of AI while still pushing forward at breakneck speed.

Case-in-point, Anthropic cofounder and CEO Dario Amodei wrote a lengthy essay about the existential risks of AI and, at the same time, is moving full steam ahead in the AI race. The obvious issue here was best captured by a piece in Futurism, saying:

Plenty of questions remain surrounding the real risks of advanced AI, a subject that remains heavily debated between realists, skeptics, and proponents of the tech. Critics have pointed out that the existential risks often cited by leaders like Amodei may be overblown, particularly as improvements in the tech appear to be slowing.

We should also consider the greater context of Amodei’s verbose warning. The CEO’s company is looking to close a massive, multibillion-dollar round of funding at a valuation of $350 billion. In other words, Amodei has an enormous financial interest in positioning himself as the solution to the risks he cites in his essay.

—Victor Tangermann, “Anthropic CEO Warns That the AI Tech He’s Creating Could Ravage Human Civilization,” Futurism, Jan 28, 2026

☄️ Media Acting Like a Bad Wingman Intentionally Stoking the Emotional Fires

Mainstream media don’t mind the drama because it makes readers click, debate, share content on social media, and elevate a writer or publication in ways that keeps it in the black.

It’s hard to blame them. The industry is shrinking. Just this week The Washington Post laid off 30% of its staff. And it will continue. While AI’s impact is undeniable, consumer trust is plummeting at the same time.

According to Pew Research, in October 2025, 56% of US adults have lost trust in the information they get from national news outlets. And that is down 11% from May of the same year.

👎 Cringey Courtship Tactics (E.g., Super Bowl Ads)

The AI industry spent big on the Super Bowl and with good reason: they need us to use their tools as the investment in AI is unmatched by revenue. So they really need to court consumers and it doesn’t seem to be working.

Instead of grand gestures (aka Super Bowl ads), we need to have conversations and in the context of our lives. A lot of these advertising efforts felt (in the words of our kids)…cringe. And, in particular, because their moves were so obvious… “AI isn’t that scary,” “The other guy is terrible choose me,” and so on.

So What Should We Do? Well, Choose Ourselves…

This week I spoke with a group of women who write about AI (She Writes AI). Each of us had distinct concerns, different views of the platforms, and varying values that motivate us. We said “I don’t know” and “I feel” a lot.

Because that’s the point: there are no definitive answers, just shades of personal feeling that combine into something that resembles personal agency.

At another event this week, an entrepreneur told me he has multiple iPhones that he uses for research purposes. On one, his “personality” is a 50-something woman. On another, he appears as himself (a 20-something male).

Even as a researcher, he was shocked by the relentless algorithmic targeting and shaping of the messages we receive online.

And this is particularly true of AI-specific messaging. Every story you’re receiving is intended to condition your thinking. So don’t let it. Try to seek out news proactively instead of reactively, and begin to break the mold.

✅ To Use AI is to Find Your Own Love for It

Every single day I hear amazing stories of individuals successfully using AI in their work or personal lives. Often their experiences are more mundane and tactical than news stories would suggest.

Just this week I met a woman organizing research at a charity, a marketer testing ad campaigns, a woman researching medications to take to her doctor, and a friend new to the US using AI to navigate cultural differences in her new home.

This doesn’t mean we should be lax in considering risks or asking hard questions—it means that we can’t get better at understanding AI’s real impact until everyone gives it a try.

The way that those around us are casually and effectively using AI is the real story here. We’re finding it useful; we just don’t quite understand our power to shape it yet.

That’s the story.

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The platform briefly went dark in January of 2025 after a bipartisan vote to force Chinese divestment of the US platform. A series of executive orders allowed it to run while a deal was hammered out with the site’s Beijing-based owners, ByteDance. And those orders were renewed over and over—causing many users to forget it was even banned at all.

The situation is head-spinning for a number of reasons, including the political flip-flopping, the persistent data privacy issue, and the algorithmic “misinformation” challenge. The big question: does any of that get properly resolved by the new deal?

As the new deal entered the news cycle, so did word that the platform’s most-followed star has sold his likeness as an AI avatar (as part of a $1 billion deal). And this comes after ethical questions arose last week regarding Netflix’s live streaming of Alex Honnold’s skyscraper climb without any protections against a fall (more on that below).

While we often talk about AI mostly in the context of education these days, and have discussed the “slop” (aka video garbage) circulating online, advancements this week show the stakes related to AI vs. human content in entertainment are actually much higher—and more of a ethical quagmire—than we might be ready for...

The New TikTok Deal Falls Flat

I’ve written previously about the national security concerns related to TikTok. And it’s pretty straightforward: the site’s T&Cs allow for storage of our data abroad and access by the parent company and other “partners.”

ByteDance is based in Beijing and the Chinese government has a stake in the business. China also happens to be the world’s largest broker of facial recognition technology, and of course, they are a communist country with no guarantees as to what would happen to US users’ data if stored there.

But unfortunately, to compound things, the sheer size and scope of the platform have made it supremely convenient to politicians, and lucrative commercially to just about every business out there, so no one is completely virtuous here. If they were, the ban would have gone into effect and stayed put.

Is the deal a good one? Meh. ByteDance retains control of the algorithm, the US investors get access to a lot more data than most might be happy with even under this supposedly safer arrangement, and there’s already been unrest over content curation.

The fact is that we must all decide for ourselves. It’s likely more secure, albeit as rich with data extraction as before. And it’s important to remember that all parties involved are motivated by the sheer power and financial influence of TikTok. So who the “good guy” is has become quite obscured in the end.

AI and the Future of Entertainment

Are We Headed Toward a Hunger Games Future?

I wrote this week about the future of “human” entertainment and how it may look like Alex Honnold’s life-or-death live climb of a Taipei skyscraper—the kind of high-stakes spectacle that Free Solo made famous. If AI “performers” start to infiltrate TV and film, what will we then want to see from humans? Will a thrill be the ultimate risk? There’s a lot to think about here »

When an Influencer’s AI Avatar Takes Over the Job

The largest AI-related influencer licensing agreement was inked this week between the most-followed TikTok star, Khaby Lame, and a Chinese firm. The deal is worth nearly $1 billion.

By allowing an AI avatar to be created in his likeness, Khaby can “speak” other languages and easily cross borders. But the deal, of course, raises all sorts of ethical questions about the future of influencer content and who will ultimately control Khaby’s likeness.

Is it a good thing that an influencer can spend a short amount of time building their profile and then sit back and remain forever that age while they go fishing? Or horrifying? The implications are worth pondering…

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Scaling El Capitan in Yosemite National Park without a rope could have ended very badly but we know it’s okay even before pressing play. Could it encourage dangerous copycat climbs? Sure. But not likely just because one might get a documentary made about the effort.

From National Geographic to Netflix

It would be hard to argue that the spectacle on Netflix this past Saturday was the “same” as the documentary. Because it wasn’t. Alex climbed Taipei 101 for a live audience (and was paid to do it; although according to the climber not nearly enough).

The 101-story skyscraper was the world’s tallest building from its opening in 2004 until the opening of the UAE’s Burj Khalifa in 2009. The building is an architectural marvel, full of diverse exterior features and the kind of nooks and crannies that make a televised free climb exhilarating TV.

It was also deeply unsettling. I couldn’t help but feel that we were watching the Hunger Games. The setup of Alex’s climb felt eerily familiar with the same fanfare, chipper commentary, and the “someone might die today” subtext.

Of course, in the Hunger Games the game is about the majority of players not surviving. But considering the fact that Alex could have fallen during the live telecast, wasn’t that also part of the appeal?

Is This What We Want?

Although there isn’t yet a compelling AI-generated movie or TV show capturing our attention, it’s coming. And it may shift how we feel about entertainment forever.

For instance, we’ll see the business of background actors falling away. Having spent a couple of years accompanying my daughter on set as an extra, it makes perfect sense. It’s a lot of work to usher groups of people around who are merely glimpsed in the background. There is a ton of paperwork, transportation, catering, and herding from set to craft services. Why bother if a filmmaker can just generate them using AI?

And while entertainment will still require human artistry and talent, it may remove familiar faces from our screens, leaving us with a void that we can’t explain.

When “Connecting” With Our Humanity Means a Thirst for the Ultimate Risk

So what comes next? Do we start to invite life or death feats into our homes as entertainment? Are we so bored by art that is helmed by an unknown AI-generated face that we look for the thrill that comes of seeing “real” humans in dire circumstances?

I worked for Netflix two decades ago and they were always a company that could see many years into the future. And it’s in that context that I feel even more unsettled. They may actually see what’s ahead.

While the imaginative Hunger Games or even the very real Roman Gladiator events in history seem extreme in comparison, the thirst feels the same. The commentators chatting chirpily with Alex and his loved ones through the two-hour show made it even more unsettling. Every time they talked about “Alex making it,” they meant either stopping (best case) or, more realistically, falling and dying.

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So What Comes Next?

In addition to being forward-thinking, Netflix is also a shrewd company and they would have made sure that the odds of Alex falling were slim. While that may give us some assurances, it doesn’t make the situation any better. At the end of the day, all they could do is be flexible about shifting the time (it was delayed by a day because of the weather) and institute a 10-second delay (in case he falls so it’s not televised).

Very few media outlets have ventured into the moral discussion in covering the story. They likened it to other “live events” on Netflix, or talked about Alex’s past feats and his ability to determine the feasibility of any climb. But make no mistake: he could have died on live TV. And he was paid to take that risk, and we were lured to watch on that basis.

A few writers have been bold enough to say this quite part out loud:

“Live” isn’t about authenticity; it’s about monetizing the possibility of the worst outcome, packaged around the one person the world trusts to get away with it. It’s rubbernecking with a subscription login. —Seiji Ishii, Gear Junkie, Jan 22, 2026

I watched the climb, and discussed my concerns with my family. What I’m worried about is not that it happened; I’m worried that viewers wanted to see it. I’m worried that we will start to justify this type of content (e.g., “it’s his decision”) and like Seiji Ishii writes, we’ll allow for it to become commoditized.

As I’ve started to write about human “outliers” who represent those qualities we need to hold tight to, and whose stories we can’t lose sight of, Alex’s case shows how we can exploit their specialness too. We should embrace the stories of outliers, not use them to feed our desire to keep connected to the worst ways we are human.

Share AI for Families

We have a lot of choice in what to eat. And similarly, the options for technology to explore are bountiful. In both cases we also rely on scientists, specialists, and other experts to ensure we have food to eat and technology to use.

But here’s where things start to diverge: We are exceptionally confident when advocating for what we think is “good” to eat, but then err on the side of caution when declaring what technology we think is “right.”

In both cases we have a choice, and yet there seems to be an inherent contradiction in how we approach our power to control each. I called this out in a video I created last year…

A Food Pyramid for Tech

When it comes to food, consumers are provided with “guidance.” We are provided with research, information, and suggestions, allowing us to then customize and advocate for ourselves and our families.

What tends to be missing from the endless news and chatter around technology bans today (with social media being the most notable) is the bigger conversation around how we think about our overall tech consumption. Just like with food, if we are consuming everything in sight mindlessly, targeting one type of technology or platform simply does a disservice to our overall “health.”

The numbers tell this story of technology overload. According to recent research, the average person has approximately 80 apps on their phone, using about nine a day and 30 each month. And when it comes to schools it’s even more eye-opening: According to Education Week, during the 2024-25 school year, districts accessed an average of 2,982 distinct ed-tech tools annually and 1,574 tools monthly.

We only have so much mental capacity available to us and should be using it far more wisely.

Making it Personal

Now, the catch with creating a “tech pyramid” is that it has to be personal. We must decide for ourselves what will work best and where the lion’s share of our time should be spent.

Personal agency isn’t just at the core of how to decide what technology is good for us—it’s also key to using tools such as generative AI. Creating this type of visual is a great way to talk to our kids and give them a sense of ownership and control.

What are your thoughts about regaining some sense of control here? Let me know!

In Other News

OpenAI Takes a Better Approach to Age Verification

As I’ve written about previously, age verification via image capture of kids is problematic. Our data is increasingly valuable to criminals, with high-quality digital capture of children topping the list of data to steal. Sometimes it’s necessary for adults to use image-based identification, but we should avoid it for children.

That’s why I found OpenAI’s recently announced approach worth celebrating. They will be using their own AI technology to determine whether a user is likely under 18. If an adult is incorrectly categorized, then the onus is on them to verify their age.

Guardrails for kids are important, and this is a small tweak to an approach that can go far toward providing even greater protections.

Anthropic Delivers its “Constitution”

One of the biggest challenges with generative AI is psychological. When using a tool that interacts with us in a “human” way, we need to remind ourselves to, first, think independently and not be coerced by the machine’s “confidence” in its responses. We also need to remember that there is a person behind the screen programming a framework for those responses.

All of this makes Anthropic’s newly updated “constitution” particularly interesting. It’s the type of information we need to determine whether Anthropic’s approach in creating Claude is one that we agree with.

The document is long, and some might feel heavy-handed, but it provides insight into the decisions being made behind-the-scenes. More importantly, it highlights how important it is for consumers to understand AI governance and why there will be a role in the future for those who study philosophy, ethics, sociology, and psychology.

Upcoming Events

I’ve got some fun events in the works and look forward to sharing the details with you. The next one is in February in NYC, details to come. To learn more you can sign up for updates here….

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Well, it’s the people who think slowly and deliberatively. The critical thinkers who use AI technology to further their thinking rather than replace it.

Unfortunately, fewer of us fit this profile, having feasted on a steady diet of social media with its bite-sized information and addictive emotional highs.

And that’s our problem, not the fault of technology.

In fact, the growing gap between what AI demands and how we’ve been trained to think may be the most significant AI-related challenge families face in the years ahead.

How Social Media Has Rewired Our Brains

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing feeling informed with being informed.

We’ve come to judge news by the emotional reaction it produces, not the insight it offers. Connection and engagement have shifted from in-person discussions to quips (and even threats) delivered safely from behind screens.

Even more problematic: Silence has become something to fill with useless information instead of giving our brains the time to rest and regenerate. Without mental downtime—free thinking, boredom, daydreaming—people can be efficient but not original.

Social media isn’t necessarily making us dumber, but it is making us emotionally busy. And emotional busyness destroys exactly the traits we now need most to work effectively with AI: doubt, patience, depth, quiet, and the courage to probe.

So who do we blame for stealing our critical thinking skills? AI? Social media platforms? Online advertisers? Big Tech companies?

The answer, of course, is us.

The next divide won’t be about who has access to AI. It will be between those who use AI to advance their thinking versus those who can’t think without AI.

What This Means to Learning

It’s not the introduction of AI technology to schools that’s problematic. In fact, we should embrace the efficiency it brings to teachers, the gaps it can fill in providing tutoring support, and the accommodations it offers to those with disabilities.

But the real problem lies in how AI will reshape our definition of learning itself. That’s at the core of the friction we’re seeing right now. It’s not about banning AI or playing gotcha with kids who use it for assignments. It’s about ensuring we can still reliably measure understanding versus articulation, reasoning versus presentation.

We don’t need to resist technology—we need to focus on how we think and what helps kids do that best.

Practical Steps to Reversing the Trend

We all know we should think more critically about the world around us, spend less time on devices, and avoid emotional reactions to inflammatory content. But there are concrete exercises you can do to counteract these habits and retrain your brain. Here are a few suggestions.

💡 Do one intellectual activity a week that produces nothing

Read difficult text slowly (a challenging book or journal article). Take private notes that you don’t share with anyone. Explore an idea with no outcome, no sharing, no pressure for perfection.

💡 Schedule your news consumption

Pick your sources. Set a time limit. Avoid infinite scrolling. Feeling “up to date” is not the same as understanding.

💡 Practice sitting with boredom and uncertainty

Those empty moments—on trains, in waiting rooms—are not problems to solve. They are critical cognitive recovery time. Fill that time with nothing.

💡 Don’t make decisions based on social media

Social media is like sugar: enjoyable in small doses, harmful as a steady diet. Rage is not insight, and responding is not real debate.

💡 Protect your mental energy

Use your best thinking time for sense-making, not reaction. Your attention is finite—spend it intentionally. Every moment you fill with trivial information diminishes your brain’s capacity for meaningful work.

We Have the Power

The real risk is sleepwalking into a world of extraordinary tools while steadily losing the ability to think clearly, slowly, and independently.

If we protect even small pockets of boredom, uncertainty, and deep thinking—for ourselves and especially for our kids—we don’t just keep up with technology. We stay human in the ways that matter most.

The families who do this won’t simply use AI more effectively. They’ll shape how it’s used—at home, at school, and eventually, in the world. This is how more of us “win” in an AI-led world.

Meaningful Message of Stranger Things

Stranger Things has always been a tale of resilience, self-sufficiency, personal agency, love, friendship, and bravery—and all within an analog world. But over the years these attributes have become even more top-of-mind as we wrestle with a world that’s increasingly automated.

Even more meaningful, in many ways, is how the show shines a light on the slowly disappearing bridge between adults’ memory of a youth spent without digital devices and the reality of our digitally-native kids’ existence.

It’s the cross-generational appeal of Stranger Things that makes it a great segue to conversations with our kids about deeper themes—like why our uniquely human attributes matter so much to the future.

Have We Forgotten?

The bigger challenge is not our kids listening, but how much we as adults have already forgotten. We are ourselves so entranced by technology that we don’t stop to remember why it mattered that we grew up without it.

We needed to learn how to navigate the world without constant adult surveillance or instant communication. We couldn’t avoid difficult conversations with friends, family, and teachers because there was no text, social media, or emails to hide behind. We also had to sometimes sit with the searing pain that came from extreme boredom or loneliness.

These are not meaningless memories. They are critical lessons to pass along to a younger generation. And I’m glad that we have this cultural moment in Stranger Things to think about it all.

Technology can continue to be a tool of human betterment, but only if we remember who we are without it…

Few AI Considerations for 2026

Having spent so much of 2025 thinking about AI, talking to schools and families, and digging into research, I have some thoughts about the year ahead. Here are just a few of my top ones:

1) Nobody Has the Answer

AI has been around in principle and practice for decades, advancing in fits and starts in the years since the term was first coined in 1956. And while generative AI has been notable for its consumer-facing interface and incredible progress, the foundations of AI technology have been with us for a very long time.

We are not wrestling with something new but instead coming to terms with the great opportunity we’ve already invested ourselves in creating (whether we knew it or not). We are also now dealing with the consequences the tradeoffs we’ve already made.

The problem is that we want so badly for there to be a right and wrong answer here, but there isn’t one and there won’t ever be. The good news, though, is we are in a new age of autonomy and independence and that’s something to celebrate.

2) Obvious Alliances Won’t Exist Anymore

Social media has made it far too easy for us as adults to lazily decide issues based on digital-era tribalism all the while hiding behind a screen.

We’ve convinced ourselves that it just takes hitting “like” and aligning ourselves with the platform, person, politician, or friend that “seems to think” like we do.

But AI is starting to scramble it all. How we live with this new technology will touch every one of us. And unlike many of the issues we argue about these days this one is deeply personal for each of us.

You might find yourself disagreeing with your friends while on the same page with political leaders who you didn’t seem compatible with previously. There is no AI policy “big tent.” Neither party has a platform that is fully thought out or defensible, or that seems like an obvious fit for the party.

And that’s great news, because going forward, it’s humans vs. machines, and we need to get more comfortable with figuring out what AI means to us individually and based on issues not ideology.

3) More Control Than We Think

If you’ve watched Pluribus on Apple TV (I highly recommend it), you’ll appreciate the nod to an idea of AI gone amok—or even just how lazy the digital world has made us.

Carol is just one of a handful of humans not sucked into the “hivemind,” but she has a choice whether or not to join them (well, mostly—there’s a twist at season’s end).

However hard, messy or uncomfortable it is, Carol has to decide. And it’s very much the same with all of us—we have a choice regarding the path we take here.

One reason for this is that Big Tech hasn’t fully “commercialized” its generative AI offering. The amount of money being poured into the space doesn’t come close to equaling the revenue being recouped on the back end. And that’s a problem for them and an opportunity for us. It puts consumers in a powerful position to choose what we hand over in data, what we choose to use and pay for, and what we advocate for in terms of policy.

In the days of social media, web search, or e-commerce, we got locked in and immediately turned into revenue as digital advertising alone was impossible to escape. But for now, it’s different. We need to use, trust, and like AI tools and platforms for companies to balance out their investment.

This risk is part of why the AI “bubble” may burst, and it should remind us how much control we do have.

4) Fight the Good Fight With Facts

Another great disservice that’s come from an online advertising ecosystem flourishing in our lives is the effect it’s had on fact-finding and the way it has toyed with our emotions.

We so easily fall prey to the way Big Tech pushes our buttons. We don’t seek to go deeper but instead jump right to the “easy” answer. This politician or that one is doing something terrible. Just because. This or that happens and we say they are bad or good. Just because.

We so infrequently ask “why” without judgment or emotion. And it’s not because “our country is divided”—it’s because companies make money when we get worked up. And AI is going to make it far worse to manipulate, divide and coerce us. We need to stick to the facts and resist the emotional pokes.

5) Consider with Care AI’s Benefits

Similar to the last point, we also too easily dismiss AI out of hand for reasons we may not have fully explored ourselves. I covered this a bit last week, and it bears repeating: We must understand what we’re talking about when we want to “pause” or “ban” AI. It’s not one thing, and as I’ve mentioned many times, it’s also everything—a digital reality we’ve lived with for years and years now.

I have heard stories repeatedly where the biggest and most immediate impact of AI has been on communities that are low on resources. AI has accelerated progress in ways that these schools and communities want to continue to benefit from.

Similarly, kids with disabilities have benefited from technology that gives them the chance to be back in the classroom with their peers. There are many stories like this, and we should support everyone’s right to access the technology that benefits their individual circumstance and community.

What about safety? About privacy? Those things are paramount. But if our current laws and regulations do the work they’re designed to do, then their application to AI should be no different. And if policy needs adjusting, then we need to get in and work together to get it done.

The bigger point that ends where I started with Stranger Things is this: We have way more autonomy and control over what happens next than we think. But it won’t be easy or tidy. And families need to do it together.

Happy New Year! Look forward to discussing AI in more detail in 2026!

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If we want to ensure that teachers have the best tools available and students are safely protected by existing laws and regulations, the focus should be on ensuring that all edtech systems, including those employing AI systems, operate with strict data minimization, regulatory compliance, and full transparency around processes.

Today’s debate often treats AI as a single, novel, high-risk category, when in reality schools already rely on a wide range of data-driven systems that use similar underlying technologies. Conflating these tools under one label obscures the meaningful differences that exist in purpose, risk, data sensitivity, and educational value, making it much harder to apply the targeted safeguards that student privacy laws were designed to support.

What’s needed is strong vetting, shared accountability for data privacy, and enforcement of the regulations that already exist. Beyond that, teachers need the training and support necessary to evaluate these tools effectively.

But all of these discussions become much more challenging when we aren’t working with a clear definition of what technology is being used and how AI may be part of a given tool or platform…

The WHAT: Defining and Categorizing AI

A common misconception is that AI only refers to the most advanced generative systems students encounter today. In reality, machine learning, rule-based automation, recommendation engines, predictive analytics, and adaptive learning algorithms have been used in classrooms for over a decade.

These technologies power student information and learning management systems, testing platforms, reading and math apps, behavior-tracking tools, and attendance monitors. Many “non-AI” apps also collect detailed interaction data that is later used for internal analytics, product design decisions, or future algorithm development—all still governed by education data privacy laws.

We’d be much better off categorizing AI in schools based on risk, pedagogical value, and other criteria focused on educational need rather than the underlying technology alone. A practical framework might look like this:

The WHY: Context Matters

Technology is only as good as its application and the context in its use. This is why any technology in the classroom should be considered based on what it does for students and teachers not simply because it employs a particular system.

For some students, AI provides the opportunity to be with their peers through accessibility features like text-to-speech that helps dyslexic students access grade-level content, real-time captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, or predictive text that supports students with motor difficulties in expressing complex ideas.

For others, AI-driven technology helps with language learning through adaptive pronunciation feedback or reading support through personalized phonics instruction that adjusts to individual pacing.

In a math classroom, an AI tutoring system might provide just-in-time hints that help a struggling student work through problems independently, while an adaptive assessment platform may identify specific concept gaps without requiring additional testing time.

In all cases, educators should be making informed decisions about these tools and maintaining clear communication with students about how and why they’re being used. The privacy and safety of these tools shouldn’t be an afterthought—they should be foundational requirements.

HOW: Laws are Technology Agnostic

As data underpins all AI innovation in schools, vendors should be scrutinized for their data protection standards, and all regulations need to be enforced. But, again, that should be true of any technology.

Data privacy in schools is both critical and severely under-prioritized. The conversation should not be limited to “AI” as a monolithic threat. The reality is that schools already rely on an enormous ecosystem of digital tools, many of which quietly collect, process, or share student information every day.

Generative AI is simply the most visible new layer on an already complex privacy landscape.

Schools already have many processes in place around procurement, data privacy, parental consent, curriculum review, and teacher oversight. What we need is to ensure those existing processes are updated to address new concerns raised by AI, like data use, transparency, and human oversight. That requires isolating specific risks and addressing them directly.

The question is not whether a tool uses AI somewhere in the background. The real issue is how much student data a system collects, what inferences it makes, and whether it affects student opportunities. Data risk increases as tools move from automation to prediction to decision-making—and oversight should scale accordingly.

AI is Inevitable, Confusion is Optional

Once we get clear about what we are actually talking about when we say “AI,” families, educators, and policymakers can exert real influence over how these tools are governed and used in schools. That influence depends on precision—not fear, nor blanket opposition.

Concerns about student data misuse, legal compliance, instructional quality, and unintended consequences are valid and deserve serious attention. But data practices are a matter of policy and contract, not technical destiny.

The question facing schools is not whether AI will be present; it already is. The real question is whether communities will engage thoughtfully enough to shape outcomes that reflect their values. This requires shared definitions, transparency about how tools are used, and good governance frameworks.

The goal is not consensus for its own sake, but a common baseline for discussion—and one grounded in clarity about the WHAT, the WHY, and the HOW. From there we absolutely should engage in robust debate.

There are no clear or easy answers when it comes to technology innovation, but the only way we get to meaningful solutions and consensus is through debate in good faith and on equal grounds.

A reminder that there are some useful worksheets and other tools in the resources section with more to come this month!

Have an idea for tools you need? Get in touch! And books in the mail for those who requested a review copy!

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Take, for example, headline-grabbing news around social media bans, such as the one enacted this week in Australia, or the AI detectors that are increasingly being employed in schools to “catch” cheating.

Neither is quite what it seems, and that is why both are excellent examples of the need for families to take the time to really understand risks, intentions, and consequences across every issue.

Australia’s Social Media Ban

You may have heard that Australia has banned social media for kids under the age of 16. You wouldn’t be blamed for immediately cheering on the ban, as on the surface it presents a tidy solution to a gnarly problem.

And the complexities and realities of the ban are definitely being debated in the news, with teens, and within parenting groups. They range from whether the ban limits free speech for kids and represents government overreach to whether it will push kids to dark digital corners as they seek workarounds (it’s already happening).

Unfortunately, in the age of AI there is now also a layer of risk that hasn’t been getting enough attention but that families also need to know about: Age verification technology.

Risks of Biometric and Sensitive Data Collection

As social media platforms face heightened scrutiny, or must comply with full bans such as the one in Australia, there is a natural desire to seek digital solutions to manage and mitigate risk. In this case it means facial scans that seek to algorithmically “determine” age.

But these “solutions” also means an entire “shadow” industry that collects the kind of information we general only share with critical, well-regulated parties such as banks, hospitals, etc.

Yes, we are increasingly subjected to video surveillance and facial scans in many places these days. And, yes, it can feel like a losing battle. But we need to think carefully each time we share any of our data. And in this case consider whether this is the right approach at all.

Facial data is the very coveted ingredient for creating deepfakes and other AI-generated fraudulent content. This information can be combined with other data to control or steal from us. The implications can be dire, and we need to be smart about how and when we share this information. Red flags around this approach are already being raised by cybersecurity and privacy experts.

As Sky News reported: “Cybersecurity experts, tech executives and politicians from across the aisle have warned the Albanese government’s social media ban for under 16s could do more harm than good. The laws, intended to protect children from online harms, have instead created a complex web of privacy, data, and scam risks for both minors and adults.”

See, everything has tradeoffs. But some of the most problematic situations arise when “virtue” (e.g., keeping kids under 16 off of social media) comes at a significant “cost” (e.g., free speech, cybercrime, surveillance).

Another excellent explanation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

“… All online data is transmitted through a host of third-party intermediaries, and almost all websites and services also host a network of dozens of private, third-party trackers managed by data brokers, advertisers, and other companies that are constantly collecting data about your browsing activity. The data is shared with or sold to additional third parties and used to target behavioral advertisements. Age verification tools also often rely on third parties just to complete a transaction: a single instance of ID verification might involve two or three different third-party partners, and age estimation services often work directly with data brokers to offer a complete product. Users’ personal identifying data then circulates among these partners.”

We must go deep on every issue no matter how “good” it sounds. Families need to consider what’s best for themselves and not simply for governments, industry, and other third party interests.

AI Detectors and the Loss of “Personal Voice”

This is another area that’s worth exploring. It’s not one news story or big event, but little issues that are stacking up each day. And it’s similarly multi-layered to the topic of age verification.

For the past five years, kids have been thrust into the world of educational technology at a speed we weren’t prepared for. And mostly that thanks to the pandemic lockdowns (ironically, the longest and most restrictive lockdown periods was in Australia). Kids are far better than adults at adopting and understanding new technology. So we have encouraged this, but now with AI we’re trying to put the emergency brakes on.

The problems with AI detectors are numerous. They have too high a false positive rate. And there is also no way to “detect AI”—just an analysis of patterns of AI output that are modeled against a kid’s work (and notably, those “patterns” come from analyzing popular ways people write via the data used to train AI). Most worrisome is that in this cat-and-mouse game of detection, even for kids who don’t use AI at all, there is a loss in what it means to have personal voice.

My daughter told me that her peers debate which words might sound “too smart” or are most likely to be flagged by AI detectors. And this is happening even with kids who aren’t using AI for their work at all.

So are we losing the point of why to even write? Is this highlighting how little time is spent in teaching personal voice? Yes, I think so.

There is a lot more to think about here than just “are kids cheating,” and we need to dig in and really sit more deliberately with the topic.

AI in Schools Going Forward

Heading into 2026, there will no doubt be many more conversations around AI in the classroom. I’ve been lucky to be involved in some of these important discussions and have a few thoughts to share on the subject…

First, having spent the year writing about AI and kids and poring through academic papers and the work of many important voices, I’ve come to this personal conclusion: We need better technology in the classroom, kids must be more proficient in its use, and far more time should be spent in offline activities (for all of us).

The irony here is that the skills required to survive and thrive in the future require the type of critical thinking and interpersonal skills that are developed in-person and offline.

We need kids to read books, debate, build, play outside, develop empathy, daydream, and sit in silence. We shouldn’t confuse meaningless technology with the type of opportunity AI can bring. We should be talking now about quality over quantity.

Something important to remember when considering what’s in the classroom too: Most edtech platforms include some form of “AI” technology and have for years. These include features such as machine learning, pattern recognition, automated classification, algorithmic inference, statistical modeling, and adaptive pathways.

So, the best approach is to focus on the outcome and the impact, not on the technology alone—and also recognize how personal and local these decisions will ultimately be. Technology is not going away, but we can shape its impact.

What are your concerns about technology in school? Have you had a chance to give it some consideration?

If you haven’t already checked out my book and would like a copy, I’m giving away three for the holidays🎄🕎☃️. You can contact me below. Also, if you have read the book and are willing to write a review on Amazon (it can be short!) I would be grateful too :)

The second is the way we’ve been conditioned to hunt for answers in a sea of content living on the Internet, guided by someone else’s answers rather than our own questions. Instead of intentionally looking for what we need, we passively consume what’s been written.

On the other hand, while generative AI is still limited by its training content, it can process that content far more efficiently and shift the focus from hunting through existing and related content to asking the exact questions we want answered.

Put more simply, rather than being constrained by what someone else chose to write about, why not drive the inquiry ourselves? That is what AI allows us to do…

Why Questions are the Secret to AI’s Usefulness

⓵ You Get to “How To” Faster

Last week, I needed to figure out how to get my family to a London-bound 10 p.m. flight out of Newark Airport from Manhattan on Thanksgiving Eve. I knew it would be crowded, but how crowded and would the lines still be long? What would public transportation be like? Is there decent food available in terminal C?

Sure, I could have tried to piece answers together from a Google search. But it’s an approach focused on sifting through existing answers rather than getting right to my precise needs. Flipping the script can make a big difference.

Instead of passively scrolling through information I didn’t need—like how busy the day before Thanksgiving was nationwide or more general recommendations around timing—I was laser-focused on what I needed to know, and quickly got a granular timeline from ChatGPT.

⓶ You are Better Able to Exploit Opportunities

How many times a day do you NOT ask a question when you could (or should)? Sometimes it’s to spare ourselves the trouble of bothering. Other times it’s just habit or due to fear of asking a “dumb” question. But we rarely consider what is missed by not asking.

For instance, on our return the flight was delayed by four hours. When boarding I was handed a photocopied document with small print and something about “knowing your rights.”

Frankly, pre-generative AI I wouldn’t have bothered reading the paper. But I popped “Regulation 261” into ChatGPT and found that I ultimately was owed financial compensation for the delay. And thanks to my AI interaction, I had the compensation in hand within 24 hours. It would never have happened if I didn’t ask the question.

⓷ It Can Help You Form an Opinion

Over the holidays, I asked friends about how they use AI tools. One response that stood out was using chatbots to explore contentious issues without fear of judgment or social pressure.

How often are we guided by what we consume on social media or watch on TV even if it doesn’t sit with us perfectly? We might have questions but how do we work through them?

But if you could explore issues, particularly divisive ones, and really dig into them, would it change how you see the world?

⓸ It Can Put Health-Related Issues into Context

Hopefully you are beginning to see how much nuance is involved in the use of AI and its impact on your life. Nowhere is this more true than when trying to better understand your health and wellness.

Without a doubt, the sensitivity of health information and the consequences of placing too much trust in a machine make this a delicate area. But there’s real value in thoughtful exploration.

If you think of AI as simply a processor of enormous amounts of information, with outputs based on patterns, you can see the usefulness. For instance, in trying to understand the basic protocols of a health system, or the most common approaches to treatment.

All the things we secretly Google anyway we can now get a clearer, more comprehensive picture. “How do the best hospitals for ___ generally approach treating ___.” When a family member needed care, we wanted to understand NHS treatment protocols and timing, and got a quick response that helped us know what to expect.

The key with health topics is to ask for the broadest perspective possible, or for a set of informed questions to bring to your doctor. The goal here is to give you the tools to ask even more questions and advocate for you or your loved one’s very specific needs.

⓹ It’s an Opportunity to be More Thoughtful

Having a way to “take a beat” can be a surprisingly helpful use of AI. While it might seem like the least important application of the technology, it can represent an opportunity to approach people and situations more thoughtfully.

What does this look like? Well, working through a hard conversation you need to have at work. Or, trying to decide if you are being unreasonable with your partner or kids about where you want to go on vacation.

Maybe how to say “no” to someone, or what’s the best way to help your neighbor. Having a way to practice difficult conversations, deliberate on your approach, or simply work through your thoughts before responding can make a real difference in how interactions unfold.

These are just a few examples, but hopefully you get the gist of it. Technology is a tool, and this new iteration can make us smarter, better informed, and more thoughtful in ways we may not have considered before.

We talk so much about AI as some technology that is separate from us, but it’s just a more advanced way to access the resources we need to be our best selves. It’s not a mystery. It does matter who is creating a model, and it matters even more that we are in control of our information and how the technology is being employed at work, home, or school.

But it’s just a tool. The real conversation should continue to be about who we are and how we want to live, work, learn, and connect with one other. It’s not about the technology—it’s about us as humans, and we need to start thinking differently about our relationship with these tools.

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What has become clear is that the requirements to create AI are far beyond our collective comprehension (🙋🏼‍♀️). From data needs so vast that the Internet doesn’t contain enough high quality information to train AI systems, to computing power requiring million-square-foot facilities that stress the environment and local community infrastructure.

There are also continued, and elevated, concerns about privacy and safety coming at us with increasing speed. And new tradeoffs that we may not have considered before. One of these is the uncomfortable suggestion that capturing and analyzing a selfie of our kids is the way to make platforms safer.

For families with kids who are Roblox enthusiasts, this is now the choice that must be made imminently.

A Solution Worse Than the Problem?

Increasingly, families are caught in the middle of a maelstrom of issues related to social media and other website harms, alongside a list of suggested “solutions” coming from every direction.

These days the most popular answer to kids clamoring to get onto social media and gaming sites seems to be “age verification” via AI facial-recognition systems. While these tools may appease an industry looking to remove their liability, or serve as a seemingly tidy solution for anti-social media advocates and lobbyists, it’s critical to consider the implications for kids.

In the news this week was the decision by Roblox to use just one of these systems to organize and gatekeep children by age. It’s a thorny issue as the company has faced lawsuits and kids have been preyed upon by adults pretending to be kids. But unless you are comfortable with this type of verification method, your child won’t be able to chat while playing Roblox games.

The problem is that a child’s “biometric” information—and in this case their face—is, in the age of AI especially, one of the most sensitive pieces of “data.” Leaving aside the question of how accurate these tools are, or that Roblox insists that the image isn’t “stored,” there is a legitimate question of additional risk being added to the mix.

Biometric imagery can be used to create deepfakes, to participate in online fraud, and is data that is immutable—which you cannot change once stolen. And when combined with other data available on the web, it can create a headache that follows kids into the future.

It’s also important to remember that a company’s “solution” is far more about liability than safety. While that may seem overly blunt, we have to remember these are corporate entities that have to be driven by legal obligation first, even if, of course, many also want kids to be safe.

So like with everything, it’s all about measure. And I’m confident that families are able to make these difficult and highly-personal decisions when they have the necessary information. But it’s important to know the tradeoffs and that no one cares more about your child’s privacy and well-being than you.

The one thing that I would implore you to resist, though, is pressure to make any decision based on what another believes to be “virtuous” or “good.” Once armed with all the facts and an understanding of all sides of any issue, you will know what is right for your family. There is no easy out here, no “best.”

I had an exchange on this topic recently after reading this excellent assessment of what is going on right now with age verification. It’s worth a read!

Want to discuss? Please feel free to reach out.

A Dystopian Headache in the Making

Now let’s talk data centers.

Put simply, a data center is where AI intelligence is “made.” They (ironically) can be as big as 15-20 football fields and have outsized electricity and water needs as a result.

I wrote this week about how they are becoming a surprising (and not particularly welcome) result of the race to build AI. Read more here »

Data centers are showing up in other ways as well… in particular, by sending an enormous amounts of traffic through to the web.

In the article above I also recount how my website was being flooded by data center traffic, especially from China and Singapore, and how I came to realize so was the entirety of the Internet.

If we go back to the fact that AI is created by a simple formula of data + algorithms (the “models” or math here) + computing power (the data centers), you start to see where we see the impact.

How to Talk to Kids About Technology

I’ve had some fantastic conversations this week with educators, families, and others wrestling with how we keep up-to-date ourselves while protecting our kids. And in every case, I’ve suggested that we give kids a voice, encourage personal agency, and allow them a say in finding solutions.

Now, this is easier said than done, and certainly there are age-appropriate considerations, as well as what works for you and your family. But we created these savvy “digital natives” and now we need to let them show us what it means.

We need to ask our kids to show us what they know, how they understand AI and new technology, and what they’re discovering too. We should have them explain the risks as they see them and what solutions they suggest.

Even in my household where I talk about these issues incessantly, my kids always teach me something new every day, and are paying attention to news in ways that I miss. Instead of keeping kids off platforms, it can help to discover together the risks and perhaps have them reach their own conclusions about safety.

It’s incredibly difficult, but we must remember that the kids of today will lead us into tomorrow. So it’s not just for their benefit to turn them into leaders regarding these issues…it’s for ours as well.

Want suggestions about how to talk to kids? Contact me and I’ll share some conversation starters.

Before You Go

If you haven’t had a chance, please check out my interview with the amazing Felicia Pasadyn! She’s such an inspiration and a reminder of the very “human” skills our kids will need in the future. Look for more great profiles in the weeks ahead!

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Of course, when generative AI burst onto the stage, it was less of a lurch and more of a roller coaster drop that has been doing loops and twists ever since. The implications of what has been unleashed are now visible in ways that go far beyond new tools coming to market.

We’re seeing these implications manifest in the massive physical infrastructure required to power AI development—a reality increasingly unwanted by communities across the country (and the world).

What are Data Centers?

In simple terms, data centers are massive, physical warehouses filled with powerful computers that store, process, and run the AI applications we use daily. They’re where the computing power happens—making our family’s digital interactions possible.

These big, energy-intensive physical structures are hard to miss when they appear. And as AI innovation and applications grow, the demand of the space to locate them grows. Something increasingly (and understandably) unwelcome in communities.

Just a couple of headlines from this week:

• “Data centers are spiking electricity costs in Maryland. It’s the ‘tip of the iceberg,’ one expert warns,” CNN, November 14, 2025

• “Data centers are surging—but so are the protests against them,” Fast Company, November 18, 2025

• “Will data center demands strain Archbald power, water, wildlife?,” The Times Tribute, November 14, 2025

Impact on the Community

What makes these centers hard to miss is their massive footprint. A data center can range from 200,000 to over 1 million square feet. To put that in perspective, a typical football field is about 57,000 square feet, so the largest data centers equal 15-20 football fields in size. It’s hard to wrap your head around the sheer scale, and even harder to imagine where this all goes?

While facilities can bring high-paying tech jobs and generate tax revenue for local communities, many aren’t comfortable with the tradeoffs—in particular, the electrical demands and stress put upon local infrastructure. It’s an international issue too as there has been a tendency to locate these in countries where governments have been willing to sell land, water, electricity and other resources to Big Tech firms.

Research firm Data Center Watch has been tracking grassroots opposition to data center development across the United States and over the past two years. In their Q2 2025 report, 20 projects worth $98 billion in the US were facing opposition by local communities.

It’s a sign of things to come, of course, as many more of us face this type of intrusion into our communities. But without these structures we also won’t see the type of innovation that many companies (and consumers) are hungry for.

Data Centers and the Pac-Man Analogy

The impact of AI development is taking other forms as well. The internet as we know it is facing unprecedented demands for its data.

As consumers, we know that “training” AI models requires massive amounts of data, much of which comes from the internet. How is that achieved? Companies unleash bots to “crawl” and “scrape” high-quality content.

This isn’t a new process. If you’ve ever visited a shopping search engine, you’ll see product descriptions and images collected from retailer websites and made “searchable” in one location. That information is often “scraped” from retailers.

But the scale has intensified dramatically with AI development. Companies are now systematically collecting data from across the internet to train AI models, seeking out any content considered “high quality” for their datasets.

As someone who researches and creates this type of content, my website is a prime target for machine-driven content scraping. This week I had a shock when I noticed that a high percentage of traffic was coming specifically from Lanzhou, China and Singapore.

I knew there were large data centers in Singapore, and a quick search showed that China was building some of its largest new data centers in the region where Lanzhou sits.

This systematic content collection is happening at massive scale. I checked analytics.usa.gov, which tracks traffic to thousands of US federal websites, and found that over the past 90 days, the same geographic traffic pattern was emerging. More than 20% of traffic to federal sites was also coming from these same two locations—Lanzhou and Singapore.

While we can’t definitively conclude what this traffic represents, the timing and specificity suggest that the race to develop AI is creating new patterns in how our digital content is being accessed, often without website owners being explicitly informed about how their content might be used.

What makes this pattern even more significant is that 51% of all internet traffic now comes from machines rather than humans, and many modern bots are AI-driven, meaning they can learn, adapt, and mimic human behavior in ways that make them much harder to detect.

It’s not just the international traffic either. As I looked at the top cities sending traffic to my own website some were unfamiliar to me such as Boardman, Oregon, which is an Amazon data center. All of this illustrates what we are hearing in the news about a new “Cold War” between the US and China to scale AI innovation.

What Does it All Mean?

For families, this illustrates the incredible scope and scale of AI development happening around us. There’s a race manifesting itself in how the web is changing—right down to our local communities and the business infrastructure we’ve grown to rely on.

With such massive bot-related traffic, website owners can’t trust their analytics, advertisers can’t trust their engagement metrics, and content creators are seeing their work systematically harvested without consent.

Within the next 18 months, we may see a fundamental shift in recognition of this new reality. We may need to acknowledge that the “internet” is becoming primarily a machine-to-machine environment with humans as a minority presence—with much of our activity moving to AI-mediated platforms.

This matters to families for three key reasons:

First, while it’s tempting to postpone seriously engaging with generative AI tools, that time has passed. These traffic patterns signal the transformative scale of AI development happening around us. Second, the internet as we know it will be gone sooner than we think. We’ll be experiencing it differently as AI functionality becomes built-in, reshaping how we discover news, find small businesses, and interact with information online.

Finally, with data centers arriving in communities and straining local infrastructure, we need to understand how these developments align with our values and what tradeoffs we’re willing to accept.

We’ve been heading in this direction for a long time, but now it’s crucial to understand what this transformation means for you and your family today.

But as I soon found out, the happy demeanor is just the start of a long list of accomplishments and gifts that this runner possesses. For starters, she is a medical student at NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine—somehow also finding time to train as a long-distance runner. She’s a former NCAA champion swimmer and graduated from Harvard in just three years. In her last season at the school, Felicia was recognized by the NCAA for holding a 4.0 average during the 2022 record-setting swimming season.

Felicia then headed to Ohio State University, where she used her continued eligibility to swim for the Big Ten school while studying for a master’s degree in bioethics. Felicia’s accomplishments as a swimmer are too many to list here and alone would warrant a full profile of the scholar-athlete. But it was her breakthrough as a sub-elite NYC runner that caught my attention and earned Felicia an entire new cohort of fans.

After placing first in a number of local races this year, she was invited to compete in the elite women’s category at the New York City Marathon. And incredibly, she didn’t just run with the world’s best, Felicia came in first among New York women, 8th among American women, 14th overall among women, and also qualified for the 2028 Olympic Marathon Trials with a time of 2:35:17.

It’s an incredible accomplishment from someone who embodies the qualities we hope to see in the next generation—discipline, empathy, grit, wisdom, and joy. And these are the stories of the amazing “outliers” that need to be told.

Introducing the “Outliers”

As I’ve written about previously, while AI can help us achieve great things, we also need to consider the potential unintended consequences of the technology. For instance, AI systems tend to favor “safe” and “bland” responses. From a data science perspective, delivering the “most likely” or “average” answer, especially to questions that aren’t definitive and binary in nature, makes sense. But this can come at the expense of learning about “impossible” achievements and extraordinary people. In data terms, these extraordinary people are the “outlier” data points that can easily be filtered out—if they’re captured at all.

So, what does that mean in practical terms? Well, it could mean that safe answers woven throughout everything we access and the content our kids learn from can start to erode our imagination, creativity, and dreams. It’s the stories of other human beings that connect us to our own sense of what we can achieve—and we could lose this to AI systems. If these stories are “edited out” of content or never make it into what we read or experience, we risk becoming duller and less inspired in our thinking.

Through profiles of extraordinary people, I’m hoping to explore this topic in more detail. And I could not be more excited to share Felicia Pasadyn’s story as the inaugural profile for this section. Because unless you’re a runner here in NYC or have encountered Felicia in another context, you’ve likely never heard of her—but you likely will. Not only for her achievements but for Felicia’s fresh and unique perspective that highlights the power of those uniquely “human” skills that will be critical for kids to succeed in tomorrow’s world.

Meet Felicia Pasadyn

(Our chat edited for length and clarity…)

AI4F: You are, of course, an objectively amazing person, Felicia, but I also sense something different about your experiences and approach. So let’s start from high school. What has your journey been like? What has motivated you to succeed?

FELICIA: I was a three-sport athlete in high school. I also took a lot of advanced placement courses and was a very busy student athlete all during this time. I also grew up in a family that was extremely supportive of every dream that I had. And I dreamed big when I was younger.

I remember all the great moments, like being invited to the Olympic training center for being one of the top swimmers in the country. I also traveled a lot for swim competitions and for running competitions. I have three older sisters who also liked to run and swim and be very active. This was how I originally got into sports.

But for me, I also fell in love with the idea of sports. I loved the grit and self-determination that I felt every day at practice. It was about getting competitive with myself and then seeing the results. It’s like you get this little taste of success and all you want to do then is get back into the pool or back on the track and work even harder the next day.

“I always say hard work breeds success, and then success breeds hard work.”

—Felicia Pasadyn

Having people in my life, like really good friends and family, who I care about has also been a huge motivator. I know that my parents would wake up at 5 a.m., not because they wanted to, but because that’s when my swim practice was and they wanted to drive me there. So sometimes at swim meets or at hard practices, I would just think about them to keep going.

AI4F: My daughter is fixated on your Instagram feeds (personal and fitness), as they show your commitment, discipline, and, seemingly, grueling schedule. How do you do it?

FELICIA: I have this rule called the “hitting my four non-negotiables.” It’s a rule that I’ve had for myself since college, when, at the time, I would be walking over Charles River while at Harvard at 5 a.m. to get to swim practice. That practice would then be followed by a full day of classes that were very challenging intellectually. And then there would be another swim practice followed by study in the evening. So, I developed this concept to help me look back at my week and feel balanced and fulfilled ensuring that what I’m doing is sustainable.

First of the four is that I must get 8.5 to, ideally, 9.5 hours of sleep per night, or my brain and body do not recover very well. I also focus on fueling my body in a very functional and nutritious way. Second, I am the only one in my family who doesn’t live in Northeast Ohio at the moment, so I call at least one of them every single day just to make sure I have that touch point.

Third, I’m very close with my friends, and whether it’s scheduling a weekly potluck or a card game session, or even just a small walk to the local park, that fills my cup and helps me keep things in perspective. And fourth, is just booming back out and remembering my ultimate career goal. Because eventually I want to be a breast radiologist working with women and helping detect breast cancer—work that’s very important to me.

“By doing these [four “non-negotiables”] each day, I feel happy and fulfilled and very balanced.” —Felicia Pasadyn

AI4F: I write about AI and focus on the risks and opportunities that technology will continue to introduce into our lives. What I find interesting is how much you are an illustration of the power of having very “human” qualities. For instance, you seem incredibly focused on your experiences, and the people important to you, rather than necessarily just the reward at the end. What do you think of AI?

FELICIA: That’s all true. It’s also funny because I get asked questions about AI because of my focus on radiology. I often hear, “You know, AI is just going to take over that specialty.” But I’ll tell you what, until you can prove to me that a robot can comfort that woman with the tear rolling down her cheek as she gets a diagnosis… Until that day happens, I do not believe AI will take over radiology.

AI4F: What do you think about qualifying for the Olympic trials? Have you given much thought to what that means to you in your life?

FELICIA: It’s highly selective and honestly extremely unrealistic for me to think that I would leave as an Olympic team member. But still to go and compete against the best women in the country is the part I’m most excited about. I’m just in awe of the women that I get to compete against, and actually, the faster I get the more inspired I am by the athletes I’m exposed to at these races.

AI4F: I hope you also realize how you’re becoming quite an inspiration as well. My daughter has started to pay attention to how you train and was so excited to watch you during the live stream of the New York Marathon. What would you say to kids who now look up to you now?

FELICIA: First, I would say, the bigger you dream, the more exciting, your life becomes. Whether it’s something that you’re journaling, or thinking, or telling to a parent or a friend—if it scares you even a little, then it’s a big enough dream. Because having something to think about every single day and work toward—this is what gives you the most fulfillment in life.

I also see a tendency to pigeonhole students into one field or one sport. You don’t have to differentiate yourself so early. You should remain curious and open-minded for as long as you possibly can. I think it’s important to just keep wondering: What is out there for me in the world? Keep that question in the front of your mind for as many years of your life as you can. 💕

Have a story of someone you think is a remarkable example of holding fast to our humanity? A person that exhibits the “outlier” tendencies that are worth telling others about? Please let me know!

Once we know WHO we are it’s much easier to decide HOW machines can enhance our lives and WHERE the lines should be drawn concerning our use of AI systems.

What’s at Risk?

One of the unintended (and, I believe, least discussed) risks of AI is how it’s incentivized to deliver a response that is “safe.” It goes for the “most likely” or “most provable” answer. Of course, that makes sense. But are we fully considering the implications of safe and “homogenous” as we pepper AI into absolutely everything? Probably not.

Just look at what’s happening with AI-enabled Internet search results. You might be looking for a variety of perspectives and opinions when you search on Google, but now quite often the AI results are curt and binary in their “answer.”

For instance, I wanted to see what “people were saying” about the ending of a TV series I loved (The Lazarus Project). I wondered who also may have theorized about the relationship between two of the characters. And, welp, Google’s Gemini cut me right off. “No” it said. End of story.

It’s inexplicable why Google has decided to insert Gemini in this way, but that’s a post for another day. The bigger issue is how many might end their journey of discovery when an AI system offers such an abrupt response.

(P.S. hate AI intrusion into your Google search experience? When you add a phrase or question in the search bar add “-AI” and you won’t see an AI-generated answer)

Who Are The “Outliers”?

In my book I talk about the fact that boring, safe, and homogenized AI responses can (if we let them) start to shape the boundaries of what we think is possible—especially for kids.

When an AI chatbot responds with such authority that something is impossible, never done, or just simple provides a “yes” or “no” answer, it can be a serious deterrent to imagination, critical thinking, and any understanding of nuance.

Or, even worse, the answers can be inaccurate and limiting (especially as these responses are simply based on what has been written about previously).

And this is where “outliers” come into the picture. If humans and our digital data underpin these “definitive” AI responses, then it is far tidier algorithmically to just remove any errant data points from the mix (i.e., that “one person” who might have credibly argued the same theory I had about the Lazarus Project).

If there are no “examples” or content related to questions, ideas, or queries, what then? Imagine how many people have done extraordinary things that defy convention or belief but then “disappear” because the story never made it into the Internet content that drives these AI responses. That should worry us more than the “machines will destroy us” narrative we hear most frequently right now. We are at a far greater risk of handing our humanity over to technology and becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy as a result.

How Stories of “Extraordinary” People Begin to Disappear

If our news is AI generated, and our education materials led by AI, how do we resist the urge to think “within the box” rather than outside of it? Do we wake up someday and realize we are all boring, prone to group think, and risk adverse because “AI taught us” to be this way? Do we think the world can simply be organized into “yes” and “no,” “true” or “false”?

As readers you know I think that AI innovation can help us achieve great things. But if we don’t understand what is currently underpinning the technology we will fall prey to its darker implications.

That said, it’s not the technology that is to blame but the humans involved in its development and the “ingredients” that underpin AI’s output. For example:

• Local news is disappearing. According to my graduate school alma mater, over 40% of local news outlets have dissolved in the past 10 years. When you consider that AI responses come from Internet content and that local news is where we tend to find the most “human” stories, the implications are signifiant. All of those “local heroes” and individual human-interest stories that aren’t feasible to cover in the same way nationally, start to disappear.

• We Participate in fewer community events. According to the 2024 American Social Capital Survey, just 44 percent of Americans report attending a social event in one’s community even just a few times a year. It’s those interactions that expose us to a wider variety of people doing unique, interesting and even great things. It’s the very basis of our understanding of other people and what’s possible.

• Social media algorithms favor commercial (and other) interests. On the flip side, we spend so much time online that we experience the world according to algorithmic equations that prioritize commercial interests over truth. We are already prone to say “everyone thinks” these days without recognizing that “everyone” might not actually be…everyone.

Introducing “The Outliers” Special Section

And here is how we find ourselves at my new AI for Families section. As a trained journalist I always return to the mandate of “showing” not “telling” readers. And I can think of no better way to show readers what’s at risk these days than in profiling some very extraordinary human beings.

So to supplement the ideas, research, tips and overall thinking about AI that I cover on this website, I am now going start profiling the types of people who defy expectation as a celebration of what we can achieve and a warning as to what may lose if we don’t pay attention.

Know of someone that deserves a shoutout? Let me know!

We so infrequently dig into who we are and what we believe that we can forget how foundational these conversations are. By holding more tightly to what makes us human, we can give kids the power to make hard decisions and successfully navigate AI in the future.

Here are some exercises to get you started...

Helping Kids be More “Human”

1) Consider “Truth-Seeking” as a Muscle

Whether it’s generative AI output or the way that AI amplifies social media content, one of the biggest challenges going forward for families will be in determining what is actually “true.” And it’s not as straightforward as you might think either as”truth” can be highly individual and context-specific.

We’ve already seen how social media algorithms create “confirmation bias” and steer us toward whatever platforms, companies, organizations, or even governments want us to believe. But now with the AI ability to amplify any content, it’s going to get harder to navigate.

Think of truth-seeking like a muscle that you need to actively flex to keep it strong and sharp. Here are some activities that may help:

• Practice “source tracing” as a family. For instance, when someone shares something they heard or saw online, make it a habit for family members to ask: “Where did that come from?” and start to piece together the full picture.

• Consider creating a family agreement about checking at least two different sources before accepting any news as fact (…even “trusted” news). The key here is to ensure you see all “angles” of an issue and incorporate nuance and perspective into truth-finding activities.

• Try “perspective exercises” where you deliberately seek out how the same story is being covered by different news outlets or from alternate viewpoints. This is a great way to help kids identify what is fact and what is opinion and see how they differ.

• Work as a family to identify AI-generated content by looking for telltale signs. For instance, look for unusually perfect writing or unnatural phrasing. Also generic stock photo-style images that don’t seem to really fit an article, and even information that seems too good (or bad) to be true.

• Establish your family’s own “verification standards.” Maybe this means always checking the original source, or agreeing that if something sounds outrageous, you’ll fact-check it together before sharing it around. The goal isn’t to become skeptical of everything, but to build the habit of pausing and checking before we believe or pass along information.

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2) Give Kids a Chance to “Show” You

Personal agency and self confidence is one of the skills most at risk right now for kids thanks to AI. But conversely these skills are also the superpowers that will guide kids to what’s next. Try to take time each week to ask your child to show you how they may be using generative AI. Ask how they think it “should” be used, and let them talk to you about what other kids are sharing and talking about online. Here are a few examples:

• Ask your middle or high schooler to walk you through how they use (or might use) ChatGPT for a homework assignment. This is not to catch kids doing anything “wrong,” but to understand their thought process and discuss when it’s helpful versus when generative AI might be limiting their learning.

• Have younger kids show you any AI apps or games they’ve discovered recently. Ask them to teach you how to use these platforms and tools. Give them the opportunity to be the expert while you ask genuine and probing questions.

• Ask teens to give you a “social media tour.” Let kids show you what’s trending, what kinds of content their friends are sharing, and what feels authentic versus what might be AI-generated. Follow up with “What do you think about that?” rather than inserting your judgement. And together work to determine what content may be fake and where algorithms and settings may be customizing the content and why.

• Try “reverse tech support” where you ask your child to help you use an AI tool for something you’re working on. Maybe let them work with an AI system to write an email or plan a trip. This lets kids see how adults can use these tools thoughtfully while giving them a chance to guide the conversation.

• Work to end these interactions by asking “What questions do you have?” and “What are you curious or worried about?” This keeps the focus on their agency and critical thinking rather than just your concerns. The key is positioning kids as the teachers and experts of their own experience while creating space for genuine dialogue.

3) Organize Family Debate Nights

Unfortunately the concept of quick and swift “cancellation” online has created fear of rocking any boat right now, no matter how benign the disagreement. But that has conditioned all of us to be far less confident in our own beliefs. The best way to sharpen critical thinking skills, confidence, and personal agency is through seeing all sides of an issue and hashing it out.

The goal is to fight the intentionally emotional responses and “tribalism” that companies and media are often incentivized to ignite in us. And by debating issues at home it gives kids a safe place to work it out. Here are a few examples:

• Start with low-stakes topics where everyone can practice arguing the opposite of what they believe. For instance, issues like, “Should kids have later bedtimes?” or “Is it better to live in the city or the country?” Give each person 3 minutes to argue for the side they disagree with, focusing on finding the strongest points rather than the weakest. As you get the hang of it (and depending on your children’s ages) you can dig into thornier issues.

• Try “perspective swapping” with current events that your family has different views on. Set a timer and have everyone argue from a completely different political, generational, or cultural viewpoint than their own. The rule is you have to find at least three legitimate points the “other side” makes.

• Create “devil’s advocate dinners” where one person picks a family rule or decision and someone else has to argue against it (even if they actually agree with it). This could be screen time limits, curfews, or even bigger family choices like where travel to for a family vacation.

• Practice digging into AI-related dilemmas. For instance, “Should schools allow ChatGPT for homework?” Or, “Should companies be required to label AI-generated content?” Have family members argue positions they don’t naturally hold, and discuss what they learned about the issue afterward.

• End each debate by asking “What did you learn about the other perspective?” and “What’s one thing that surprised you?” This reinforces that the goal isn’t winning, but understanding—a crucial skill for navigating an increasingly polarized digital world.

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In Other News…

My Chat About AI With Compass Rewire

Compass Rewire founders Samantha Mulcahy and Katie Montbriand invited me this week to talk about the skills kids need to succeed in an AI-driven world. It was perfectly timed to this week’s newsletter—and shows how much there is to talk about when it comes to kids and AI.

Welp…

Apparently the password for the surveillance system at the Louvre was … “Louvre.” Yes, as unbelievable as it seems, this is a fact. Even our kids would consider this a shocking crime against good cybersecurity practices. Don’t be like the Louvre, plan a family password clean up day at least every six months. Keep passwords strong, long and impossible to guess.

Book Availability Expands 🎉

My book is now available widely from Amazon to Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Apple, Google, and booksellers around the world! Here is a full list here…

If you’ve taken a look, and are willing, I’d be grateful for a review, no matter how short. Even stars will do! You can do this on Amazon, Goodreads, Bookshop or your favorite book retailer (larger list here).

What are you talking about right now? As AI is becoming more of a topic in schools and day-to-day life, I’d love to hear from you.

The problem with an industry that we’ve allowed to become quite insular and storied is that technology literacy isn’t considered a shared core competency. So we second-guess ourselves. When we instinctually think something is strange or “off,” we wonder if we’re really in any position to question it.

But I’d like to encourage you to rethink this gut response. If for no other reason than to recognize that the dominant technology today is intended to mimic us. As I share in my book, we are both the “product” and the consumers of AI, so things are different now. We get to have a say.

So today I thought I’d share a few examples of the type of news and information that got me talking to friends and family recently. And when you read something that gets your attention, I hope you’ll similarly bring it up.

This Week’s “Did You Know?” List

The First Chatbot was Created Nearly 60 Years Ago

MIT researcher Joseph Weizenbaum created a chatbot named ELIZA in 1966. The program was engineered to replicate a conversation that a psychotherapist might have with a patient. So if you were to say “I’m unhappy with my job,” ELIZA might respond “Why do you think you might be unhappy with your job?” While Weizenbaum had initially intended to show the limitations of machine-human interaction, he inadvertently illustrated how quickly we can attribute human characteristics to a machine—and get emotionally attached.

What surprised me when learning about ELIZA was that the psychological implications of these types of interactions were very clear in 1966 (it’s even called the “ELIZA effect.” And there have been many variations of chatbots since.

So why weren’t we better prepared for the psychological impact of generative AI tools like ChatGPT on those who are vulnerable, and especially kids? Well, in part it’s because we’ve isolated technology from the social studies and the arts. While we talk today about the importance of interdisciplinary study, and of ethics and philosophy in AI development—it’s clear it always should have been that way.

The “Humanoid” Market is Expanding Rapidly

Just like with ELIZA, we need to be better prepared for the emotional and psychological consequences of new technology. And the future of robots that resemble humans is a big one. It’s not sci-fi but an exercise in emotional resilience to get our kids prepared.

First, the market is expanding rapidly with projected growth of 50% yearly over the next decade, with various estimates putting the market in the range of $38 billion by 2035.

China is also leading every country by far in humanoid development, and there are projected to be billions (yes, you read that right) operating by 2040. And again, these aren’t just “robots” but “humanoids”—machines with two arms, two legs and an effort to (in some capacity) resemble us.

Why should families pay attention? Well, it doesn’t matter how skilled or expensive these robots are over the next 10 years. What matters is that once ChatGPT and others take on a humanlike form, we may find ourselves experiencing an existential crisis. So, like with generative AI, let’s not overlook having conversations with our kids about what the future will look like and what these machines will mean to them.

Loyalty Programs are Taking Data to Train AI

It’s no surprise that loyalty programs provide a discount and incentive in exchange for data from us. But even so, I was riveted (and not in a good way) by a recent report from UC Berkeley Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice and the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator about how far astray these programs have gone. I recommend a full read of the report as it made me gulp. A few highlights:

• Like Monopoly at McDonald’s? Well, you should definitely know the company is using the data to train its AI models. They are also building extensive profiles of customers, “…predicting their ‘preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, or aptitudes,’” the report notes.

• Loyalty programs create a literal novel-length dossier on us. A report on grocery chain Kroger noted: “One profile stretched across 62 pages, with inferences about the consumer’s income, gender, household size, and education level.”

• Loyalty data is shared with dozens of companies, from other brands to data brokers and more. It’s an ecosystem like nothing you can imagine and probably not equal in value to the perks received.

• You are being micro-targeted with price. You might not pay the same as your neighbor does for goods or services, because companies know your income and appetite for spending.

We need to stay curious, ask questions and lean into our surprise. These are just a handful of reasons to get you thinking about what may have caught your attention this week. Let me know.

Also Happening

Book Update 🎉

Thank you for your notes of support for my new book. It’s now available pretty much everywhere books are sold. If you’d like to see it in your local bookstore, you can ask them to order a copy.

I also now have a Bookshop.org storefront, as well, where I can highlight the book and also share those books that I mentioned in AI for Families. You can visit here (*note I received a small commission from books purchased in my store).

Women in AI

A long overdue shoutout to software engineer, book author, and Substack writer, Karen Smiley who has curated a database of women who write about AI. In addition to the amazing database, Karen sends out a digest of updates that’s worth checking out. We need far more women talking about technology and Karen has done a lot to surfaces these important voices from around the world.

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