I sat at a table in the gym at my son’s school. At the other tables, there were a dog groomer, a police detective, someone from the state park maintenance crew, an archaeologist, and other community members. We were there for career day.
My topic was AI.
I’ve spent more than a decade working in artificial intelligence. In most rooms, the conversation covers the hype, the promise, and the fear of what AI is taking away. Today it was about the kids. About how, whatever path they found, AI would be part of it. How it could help them be creative, express ideas, and make things that hadn’t existed before.
I wanted to use it as an opportunity to talk to the teachers as well. They were as curious as the kids, maybe more so. They chose this work deliberately, and they took everything seriously, including this. Some were more comfortable with technology than others, and some were still trying to separate what they’d heard about AI from what it actually was. But they knew it was here. They knew their students would use it. And they understood, maybe more clearly than most, that for kids like theirs it could be something more than a productivity tool. It could be an enabler. A way in to things that had felt out of reach.
The first group of kids entered the room.
I had a sign on my table. My name is Dave. My son goes here. He’s in tenth grade. Ask me about AI.
When each group came over I’d ask their names, what grade they were in. I told them my son went to this school. I asked if they knew what AI was and offered the simplest explanation I could — using a computer to create something new. Then I told them my son had made a song using AI. That it was on Spotify and Apple Music. And I played it.
They listened. When it ended I told them there was no one playing instruments, no one singing. A computer made all of it.
I asked them if they wanted to create something.
With the younger ones I had cards with Mad Libs style prompts. They would fill in the words and I would enter them and we would watch their idea become an image. Their dog as a superhero. A hero with brown hair wearing armor made of green dragon scales. They were amazed at how it worked. The words going in, the image coming out, something that hadn’t existed a moment before. I also had a handout they could take home, with example prompts their parents could try with them.
The middle school kids didn’t need the cards. They came up with their own ideas. One wanted an image of something specific. Another wanted a training plan for a video game he was trying to get better at. They knew what they wanted to make. They just needed someone to show them the tool.
Some had already used ChatGPT. A few had used it for homework. One girl said she used it as someone to talk to.
That made me think about my son.
About the years he spent on the outside of social groups, wanting to be understood, not always finding the right person or the right moment. About what it would have meant to have something that would just listen. That wouldn’t get tired or distracted or move on. The adults in the room were thinking about AI in terms of what it might take from these kids. That girl was using it for something the adults hadn’t thought to offer her.
That’s always the interesting part. Not what the technology is supposed to do. What people actually do with it.
I was waiting at my station when a few of his teachers stopped by to tell me he had been excited about career day. That he had prepared questions. That he was ready.
When his group came in, he started at the far end of the gym. I watched him work his way around the room, stopping at each station, his piece of paper in hand. He was serious in a way that was hard not to notice. Not performing seriousness. Actually in it. Each presenter got his full attention.
Eventually he made his way to me. He had a wry smile when he arrived, like he had been saving something.
He asked me what I wanted to be when I was younger.
I told him I wanted to be a marine biologist for most of my life. That I was always good with computers and had my first one around age ten and started learning to program. That somewhere along the way the computers won.
He listened. He wrote something down.
We’ve had this conversation before. A few times, actually. It’s not one of the things his brain decided to store, so each time it comes back around it’s new to him. I don’t mind. I’ll answer it as many times as he asks.
He worked through the rest of his list until he was done. I watched him move on to the next table, his paper still in hand. And then it was over. I packed up my things and he walked back across the gym to join me.
As we walked to the car, I asked him how it went, and who he talked to, and what he learned. He was excited that he got to pet the dog. He was interested in the auto body shop, and I told him they were the ones who fixed the mirror on our car. I don’t know if he was looking at any of them as possibilities. I just loved that he was curious.
His school thinks about this deliberately. They talk about life after graduation as something to prepare for, not just something that happens. Giving kids a glimpse of what their futures could look like, what’s out there, what questions are worth asking. They’re educating the whole child. The curiosity. The encouragement to chase it. The bravery to follow through. That’s how they do it.
He showed up with questions. He asked every one of them and left curious about something new.
Whatever comes after, that’s a place to start.
