Teens weigh AI’s promise against deepfake fears (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: It's starting to get to the point where I'm a little bit concerned about understanding what like is AI and what's not. So when I'm scrolling through my feed, I occasionally will see things that I'm like, I'm not sure which one that is. And so up until this point, I've been able to tell really, really well. But honestly, in the past week, like even there's been a couple videos that have come up that I've been very like, I don't know. And so that's kind of scaring me.

[00:00:27] Speaker 2: Welcome back to Terms of Service. I'm Claire Duffy. On this show, we've talked a lot about how AI impacts teenagers, their schoolwork, their social development. But what about their futures? When it comes to college and career planning, how are they thinking about how AI factors into that? I spoke with three current high school students who all had somewhat different philosophies on this. And you can hear all of those conversations in the audio version of this podcast. Here's my conversation with one of them, Lincoln Bonk, who is a high school sophomore in Georgia. Well, Lincoln, it's nice to meet you.

[00:01:02] Speaker 1: It's nice to meet you, too.

[00:01:04] Speaker 2: Remind me what grade you're in?

[00:01:05] Speaker 1: So I'm a sophomore in high school in Georgia.

[00:01:09] Speaker 2: And when did you first use AI in school? Like what was the tool or the platform that introduced you to AI in the school setting?

[00:01:18] Speaker 1: So I was in honors biology last year at the beginning of my semester. So it's been about exactly a year when the teacher basically had us do an assignment and he encouraged, I believe it was AI to do research. So asking questions, prompting. I believe I used chatGBT as my language model for prompting and asking questions. And then we may have also used image generation, but that may have been later in the class.

[00:01:47] Speaker 2: Cool. And have you been using AI like in your personal life outside of school at all?

[00:01:53] Speaker 1: Yeah. So my AI experience did not come from school at all. And I feel like that's pretty standard with a lot of kids as they get their AI experience somewhere that's not the classroom. And so when teachers encourage AI use in the classroom, they're not really teaching us. It's more we're seeing it from our friends or through social media. And so we have a lot of background knowledge to walk into class with to use it effectively.

[00:02:18] Speaker 2: Got it. And how are you using it just personally?

[00:02:23] Speaker 1: So I want to go into political science. So I use AI to better understand the different facets of an issue. I think that's really important. It's really helpful when asking. I've used it for religious questions before to understand different denominations of my faith. I've searched for answers for things, used it for research projects, written things, and had it annotate my writing before. So I've used it for a lot of different things.

[00:02:53] Speaker 2: And mostly, ChatGPT or using other platforms, too.

[00:02:57] Speaker 1: ChatGPT is my preferred platform. So I use AI on my mobile platform. It's like what I typically interact with AI on. But I have tried Copilot, but I really like the fact that ChatGPT has a lot of my chat history. And so it knows it can reference prior conversations. And I really appreciate the fact that it can do that.

[00:03:22] Speaker 2: Just going back to school, do you find that most teachers are embracing AI in the classroom? Has there been resistance to AI at school? What's your experience been like there?

[00:03:34] Speaker 1: So it varies between teachers. So different classrooms and teachers have different policies and opinions on AI. So for example, in a lot of my STEM courses, like math, AI is not involved in the classroom very much at all. That being said, students might use it on their own time to better understand their classwork or we actually did a character AI chat in class to better understand a play we were reading. So it varies teacher to teacher. And depending on the classroom setting we're in, AI is either encouraged or not.

[00:04:11] Speaker 2: I'm curious both for your opinion and what you've heard from your peers. How are young people feeling about the influence that AI has in their lives right now? Are you feeling mostly positive or negative or tell me about that.

[00:04:24] Speaker 1: So personally, I felt really positive up until about this point. And I have, there's, I've just seen a lot of like the really cool things it can do with like content creation. You know, as a young person on social media, I get to see like creators using that to make their videos better. But as of more recent, I've seen some of the negative impacts. It's starting to get to the point where I'm a little bit concerned about understanding what like is AI and what's not. So when I'm scrolling through my feed, I occasionally will see things that I'm like, I'm not sure which one that is. And so up until this point, I've been able to tell really, really well. But honestly, in the past week, like even there's been a couple of videos that have come up that I've been very like, I don't know. And so that's kind of scaring me. And then also the social impact of like, if someone were to take like my face or a picture of me and edit it using AI, there's like a way to use AI to like create like an image of two people kissing each other. And that's just like really concerning because that impacts my daily life and social life if that were to like, if people don't mess around too much with that.

[00:05:37] Speaker 2: Like I haven't, I haven't heard of people using it in quite that way. So that is both interesting and concerning. I'm curious, you talked about wanting to go into politics. Has your thoughts about your future career planning or college changed at all because of AI and the way that we're seeing AI kind of disrupt the workforce at this point?

[00:06:00] Speaker 1: Personally, it hasn't changed what I've wanted to do. I'm pretty passionate about wanting to go into politics or business or law. And so those are like all fields I'm super, super interested in. But I understand that like the approach I might take to get into that or be successful in that has changed to having to be like tech savvy. So for example, I know that I go into politics, I'm going to have to have like a general knowledge of how to use AI, make my work quicker and more efficient. And I think that's like really important when looking at like competitiveness. If you want to be competitive in a space, you have to be on top of AI. And I think that's only getting more and more true.

[00:06:41] Speaker 2: Do you want to be a politician? Like, what's your ultimate hope at this point? It's so early, but do you have a sense?

[00:06:47] Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd love to be a politician and then have a business on the side that I run. But honestly, my hands are open. Like I still do have a lot of time. So politics would be my dream. And it's kind of cool that like you get to see a lot of AI policy creation. Like I do a thing in Georgia, it's called Youth Assembly, where you will write a bill and then actually present it like a mock bill to a group of other high schoolers. And so I've had AI actually help me edit those bills and, you know, funding proposals, just stuff like that. So I'm seeing AI like what it might look like in my future career, even as it changes.

[00:07:25] Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, I was gonna say we need more. We need more politicians who understand AI at this point. So yeah, good to hear. Do you talk to AI at all as you're talking about planning your future? Like have you asked AI for advice, chatGPT for advice?

[00:07:42] Speaker 1: I have like a top college list. So I've asked AI about like questions specific to that. Most recently, I was asking it, you know, its opinion on whether or not I should take the SAT in December, because as a sophomore, like who wants to be competitive and go to a competitive school, like I asked it some questions about that, asking questions to some of my older friends and peers to see what they thought. And so I used it as a resource in that sense. I think it's helping me guide my future. And I ask it on questions on how to get certain places, but I haven't quite asked it for like too much advice.

[00:08:22] Speaker 2: What are your top colleges? You said you have a list.

[00:08:25] Speaker 1: So my dream college would be Yale. I lived up there for a couple of years. My father actually works there as a gymnastics coach. So I have that connection and Yale would be a really, really awesome. I think Georgetown would also be really cool because of its proximity to obviously Washington and a lot of political opportunities. And then UGA is also a really great college, and it's super close to home. And there's Georgia has a really robust aid program. So if you're doing well in school, they have lots of grants and aid that they can give you to go to college for a lot less money. So those are my top three.

[00:09:04] Speaker 2: I'm curious, are college guidance counselors or teachers at your school talking about the way that AI could impact your career in the future or the careers of students in the future?

[00:09:17] Speaker 1: I think what I'm seeing a lot of is that students are still wanting to do what they love to do. So a lot of STEM careers are considered maybe at risk for AI encroachment into the workplace or even writing. I have a friend who enjoys creative writing. And so there's some concern about how that might impact that. But I think a lot of students who are still wanting to go into that will go into that, but they'll have to adapt to the AI features. And so in conversations with my guidance counselors and my teachers, it hasn't been too much of an issue of like, AI is going to encroach upon that because we always need politicians. We're going to need someone to lead in a business or understands even AI in a business. So there are, at least in my field, I'm not overly concerned about that. But I do have friends who like actually had to like kind of amend their college plans based on AI.

[00:10:11] Speaker 2: What would you tell other high school students who are thinking about what AI is going to mean for their future? Do you have thoughts about what you would tell your peers or what you would like to talk to your peers about this?

[00:10:25] Speaker 1: Yeah, I would personally tell my peers, try to incorporate AI into what you love. So for me, it's like politics, but for someone who is going into a different major, whether it be art or computer science or engineering, anything, it looks like learning the tools and the ins and outs of what AI looks like in your field right now and where it's projected to go in the future. And learning how to do that even before you're actually in that field. So you have that experience and the prerequisites, you can build and do what you like to, even in a world where AI may be threatening some jobs. And then I would also advise to just take advantage of how many online opportunities we have with AI. There's a lot of different places we can learn how to use it, whether it's social media, YouTube, online courses where places will teach you how to use AI. And I think that's super, super important to take advantage of that, obviously remain very careful when searching these out and retain creativity, because that's important. So just learn how to bring AI into what you love.

[00:11:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's cool, too, to hear you describe how you've been able to figure out how to incorporate AI and use it to your benefit. And you still have your college friends that you're calling for advice and your guidance counselors. It's AI hasn't replaced those sort of human sources of support and guidance, but it's also helping you figure out how to get to the next step.

[00:11:52] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. AI has not replaced that advice section of my life, but it has become a factor that does pull from a lot of different resources, which I think is a benefit.

[00:12:03] Speaker 2: Awesome. Well, Lincoln, thank you so much. This is really interesting to hear about your experience and what you want to do here. So we're really grateful for your time.

[00:12:10] Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you so much.