Typing, talking, Googling: seeing the AI-first generation

Last month, my 10-year-old daughter entered her school’s science fair. One of the requirements was a written report, which like most kids she resisted starting as much as she could. Eventually, she opened Google Docs and stared at the blank page.

We try not to hover at this stage, though we do check in now that writing is new, just to see if she’s doing anything. I came into the office, and noticed words on the page. I also noticed a little pop-up box containing Google’s Voice Typing feature. I stood watching as she clicked and dictated; Google Voice typed her words perfectly. I said something like “Oh that’s interesting. I didn’t know it could do that.” Then I told her, “I would like her to practice typing” and avoid using that feature. 

I watched her type and every few words Google’s predictive type and spellcheck would assist by complete sentences with proper grammar and spelling. She’s also learning to “google,” but AI results appear first, shaping how she perceives the web itself. I don’t know Google Docs well enough, but maybe if she did there is an LLM hiding somewhere she could summon. 

In those few moments, a few things clicked and I glimpsed the future.

Today’s elementary school kids are the first AI generation—old enough to use computers, but too young to have formed habits from the pre-AI world. They are also the touch screen-first generation. I just so happen to have a teenager around my house, a 16 year old exchange student from Germany. They are all using AI in high school, she tells me, but none are AI first. But 8 to 10 year olds, they will barely remember a time before AI. They are the starting point of a new generation of computer users. 

In my thinking about the university’s future in the age of AI, I mistakenly populated the university with students that we have now in 2025. Rather, watching my daughter, I saw a demographic transition at work: children grow up with tools and conditions that adults spend their life adapting to and even resisting. As the AI first generation, my daughter and her cohort will natively intuit and use these tools. It is these kids that will radically change the expectation of education, and perhaps even call into question the entire value proposition of the university. Perhaps, perhaps not but if universities as we know it are around when these kids turn 18, it won’t look like it does now. 

As I watched my daughter, I felt powerless to do anything. It shook my belief in my ability to parent through this technological revolution. I did intervene. But my daughter and millions like her are the wolf pups at the edge of the village, having had a taste of human food, returning night after night. The lure of civilization with its comfort, abundance, and convenience was so strong that 10,000 years later in the other room is my spoiled Golden Retriever, a distant and barely recognizable relative of those wolf pups.

Ezra Klein recently discussed AI’s impact on K-12 education with Rebecca Winthrop on his pod. They summarized the problem quite well: teach kids the tools they need to be successful or insulate them from AI as long as possible? But what are those skills? Which ones are important? What is the right age? What is the purpose of education? These are all questions with no clear answers right now. Listening to it validated my feeling that parenting in the age of AI and social media is overwhelming. As mere mortals, parents have few clues about what to do. 

Klein also talked to Jonathan Haidt who advocates for laws like smartphone bans in schools to help kids flourish with human connection and develop essential skills. Haidt argues that taking on this challenge will require individuals and parents to deliberately change how they parent. But like the wolf pup, the allure of the easy life is calling. But most adults are the Golden Retriever, sitting on the couch using computers and AI all day long. Parents want but can’t have it both ways. 

Listening to Klein and his guests, I did wonder which of those skills will be valued going forward and which will become less relevant, rightly or wrongly. Does my daughter need to know how to write? If so, why? Is writing fundamental to being human? Mass literacy and writing are hallmarks of modern societies, so that is one answer. The implications for parenting and education are massive.

I returned to look at the screen and there was her basic report about what happens to eggshell when soaked in sugary and acidic liquids. Like everything humans do, it was a hybrid: part computer, part hers. I can totally see the time when none of that is technically necessary but for her the science fair was one of the highlights of the school year.