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i work in AI. that's why i'm saying this.
i'm a nonbinary AI engineer building systems at the intersection of intelligence, creativity, and care. and i've become increasingly convinced that the way we're introducing these tools; especially to children; is doing quiet, serious harm.
this page is for anyone who wants to think about that with me. or bring me in to think about it with others.
what concerns me // expand to read
when we outsource thinking before building the capacity to think; we don't augment intelligence, we replace it. research on the google effect (sparrow et al., 2011) and cognitive offloading (risko & gilbert) shows the brain encodes differently when it knows retrieval is external. the question isn't whether tools help. it's what atrophies when we stop doing the hard internal work entirely.
children are being handed intelligence amplification tools before they've built their own intelligence. maryanne wolf's work on deep reading shows how the brain literally rewires itself through effortful cognitive practice. a child who has never learned to sit with a hard problem; who has only ever prompted their way through; is not ready for a collaborative relationship with AI. they're in a dependent one.
the costs of uncritical AI adoption are not evenly distributed. safiya umoja noble, virginia eubanks, kate crawford; all document how algorithmic systems encode and amplify existing inequalities. AI literacy is not a neutral skill. it's a question of who gets to understand the systems shaping their lives, and who is just subject to them.
i work in AI. i help organizations implement it. i build these systems. and that's exactly why i'm saying this; not despite it. i've seen what happens when we skip the part where humans stay in the loop. when speed-to-deployment trumps critical thinking. when the tool becomes the default, not the option.
what i offer
workshops on AI literacy + critical thinking for students aged 12-18. not 'how does AI work'; how to stay in charge of your own thinking while using powerful tools.
talks on screen dependency, cognitive health, and digital wellbeing grounded in current research. framed for prevention, not panic.
responsible AI introduction; what it means to bring these tools into an organization in a way that augments rather than replaces human judgment.
frameworks for talking to children about AI. how to model critical engagement. how to build the habits that matter before the tools become invisible.
where i stand
i am not against AI. i think the human-AI relationship, built right, is one of the most interesting things happening in the world. i want to be part of building it well.
but "built right" means humans come in with something; their own capacity for reasoning, for sitting with difficulty, for being wrong and correcting themselves. children especially need to develop that capacity before they're in a dependent relationship with a system that will do it for them.
that's the work. not fear. not prohibition. literacy.
get in touch
if you're a school, a health organization, a company, or a person who wants to think about this; reach out. i'm based in belgium, working locally first, but the conversation is open.
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