AI Natives: How Are We Preparing the Next Generation?

How will AI impact the next Generation of School-Leavers? Generative AI is here to stay and soon there will be a generation of children who have grown up with this as their reality. They will be AI natives. The question we need to ask now is what they will be using AI to do and how might this affect their roles in the workplace of the future?

While many companies are using generative AI to complete tasks, thus resulting in job losses in some areas of work, more people are being employed in other areas where humans still outperform AI. So how do we skill our current students so that they are able to take the jobs of the future?

There are two extreme versions that we might consider. In the first version, AI is used to integrate, critique and write for students reducing their cognitive load. However, this version runs the risk of creating a generation of students who do not know how to think for themselves and are therefore dependent on AI in the workplace. This is a risky version of the future since the sorts of jobs that don’t require too much deep thought might be just the jobs in which AI replaces human labour.

In the second version of events, we take the best from each of what humans and AI can do. For the moment, while AI is excellent at analysis and any tasks that require long-term focus and concentration, the human brain is still better at critical thinking. By training the next generation to think critically about the results that AI generates, we are providing them with the skills that will make them useful in a human-AI workplace where critical thinking is still necessary to check and verify AI output.

What are you doing to equip your students to work with AI and to have skills that will still be required in the future?

If you'd like to learn more about critical thinking for the next generation, join our course Neuroscience for Teachers.  Find out more here.