The AI Revolution Should Foreground Youth Agency

By Michelle Culver and Tiffany C. Taylor

Ben, a high schooler in Los Angeles, is an avid gamer. He is always coming up with imaginative storyline ideas, but he’s never known anyone with design experience to help him create original games. 

When Ben attended a summer program in 2023 to explore his career interests, he had access to an AI assistant, a resource built in just 20 min by the Reinvention Lab at Teach For America using Playlab. Ben prompted the tool with the broad topic of game design and the assistant asked: “Are there any topics, genres, or themes you might be interested in?” He responded: “I really like Marvel and DC comics. And fighting games.” After some back and forth, the AI tool recommended Ben make a Marvel versus DC Comics fighting game on Scratch, a programming tool designed for young beginners. 

Even though none of the on-site instructors or peers had gaming experience, Ben was able to pursue his passion during the program. AI helped him refine the idea, narrow a topic, pick an approach, and decide where to start, while Ben remained in the driver’s seat to choose what he took from the tool.

By harnessing the intelligent assistance, personalization, and real-time interactions of generative AI, students are independently following their curiosities and learning new skills more easily than ever before. In order to help realize the full potential of generative AI as a tool for youth agency, learning, and leadership, education leaders need to unlearn assumptions about adults as gatekeepers of knowledge. 

Education isn’t just what happens when adults assign coursework in a classroom. One potential power of AI is that young people aren’t bound by or reliant on adults to drive their learning. Young people can ask questions of chatbot tools and get direct, synthesized responses tailored to their age, grade, or level of understanding. For example, a student can ask: “I’m a 6th grader and an introvert. I want to stop the cyberbullying at my school, but I am scared of becoming a target myself. Can you help me think about what I could do?”  

The accessible, actionable responses from AI, whether written, verbal or visual, shift power to young people in unprecedented ways. Izzy, a first-generation college student in San Francisco, explored financial literacy information that had not been part of her high school curriculum. She started with a simple prompt: “What are the basics I should know about financial literacy, but without any confusing jargon?” After learning more through the AI tool, she created a card game for other first-generation college students to share resources in a playful, low-tech format.

Alexandra, a 5th grader in Denver, was curious about animal psychology and asked a conversational AI app if animals could choose a favorite color. This launched her into a discovery process about how some animals have color preferences based on what is beneficial to their survival, such as birds who see ultraviolet light to find ripening fruits and insects. Both Izzy and Alexandra were able to initiate learning beyond the required content and curricula already available in school.

For this wave of innovation to be deployed for greater student agency, adults need to reject assumptions that they are and should be gatekeepers for learning. Not only are today’s young people tech natives, they will likely utilize AI tools before their teachers. And they are doing so with incredible results.

Students from Delhi, India used AI to build a boat that can monitor water quality and help identify clean water sources for villagers. A Nebraska college student leveraged AI to make a major breakthrough in deciphering language on 2000-year-old scrolls. Students can use AI to simplify tasks, such as producing professional presentations or social media content, and then build interest and momentum among their peers. The newest advancement with Sora’s text to video capabilities shows that an activist-minded teenager who wants to create art or film will need significantly less equipment, software, and training to advance their vision of social change. AI is taking youth initiative, ingenuity, and impact to the next level.

Young people are already at the forefront of addressing the serious issues and racial biases that remain with AI. Encode Justice, a youth movement for ethical AI, thwarted a California proposition to use surveillance software in criminal justice settings and has pushed for more federal regulation and oversight of AI. 

To be clear, teachers, experts, and peers remain critical partners in education and should never be fully replaced by AI. Learning is an inherently relational act, and students need support that positions them to engage critically and cautiously. 

As educators, we believe that if used responsibly, this wave of advancements in generative AI has the potential to transform education and youth leadership. Let us dream up and build a future of AI where students are in the driver’s seat.

Michelle Culver is the Founder of the Reinvention Lab at Teach For America. She serves on the board of RISE Colorado, a non-profit that works to put families most impacted by the opportunity gap at the forefront of the movement for educational equity. She is an advisor to Playlab, aiEDU and The Circle in India.

Tiffany C. Taylor is a Partner and Chief People & Impact Officer at GSV Ventures. She serves as a director on the AI Education Project board, a non-profit that creates equitable AI literacy learning experiences.The ASU+GSV Summit is hosting the inaugural AIR Show, an April 2024 exposition on the transformative future of AI and learning.