Young People Are Sounding the Alarm on AI. We Should Listen to Them

Young people are not anti-technology; they are demanding that technology be built thoughtfully. What young people are pushing back against is an industry that prioritizes quickly deploying AI everywhere before addressing the ethics, equity, and environmental impact issues that accompany it. 

No generation has more at stake in the AI era than young people. As the technology reshapes everything from their job prospects to their mental health, they have every reason to be skeptical and ask hard questions. This critical eye may be viewed as rebellious, but as we enter the AI era, we desperately need young people to keep asking more from our technology.

In this vein, we have recently seen young people flooding social media with analog creations such as cyberdecks as a quiet form of protest. Cyberdecks are homemade, custom portable computers assembled from salvaged parts and designed entirely on their own terms. Some decorate their cyberdecks with nail polish and earrings, or house them within rugged carrying cases to hold an off-grid survival device. The function of cyberdecks can be anything the user designs it to be, ranging from e-readers to photo storage. Building these pieces is about self-expression and creating something personal that reflects how they want tech to function in their lives. This generation’s fluency with tech allows them to expertly disassemble it and recreate their cyberdecks into what they want them to be.