They Grew Up With AI. Now They’re Taking Control

The young leaders rejecting big tech’s inevitability narrative

Hey friends,

We throw around the phrase “digital native” like a compliment, but Big Tech uses it as a free pass to force-feed youth their latest experiments.

They market convenience while masking the true human toll: young minds navigating rampant algorithmic fallout, all built on the backs of underpaid, invisible ghost labor. The ones who will actually have to live inside this AI-driven future are the same people being blocked from the boardrooms designing it.

In our fifth and final episode in collaboration with Young Futures, I sit down with two leaders who are completely rejecting the tech industry’s “inevitability narrative” and taking the reins of AI governance into their own hands.

Neha Shukla (Innovation For Everyone) is mobilizing a movement across 35 countries to teach students “sociotechnical literacy.” She’s fighting to ensure the youth, especially from the Global South, aren’t just used as token photo ops, but are actively writing the ethical frameworks that will govern AI.

Tazin Khan (Cyber Collective) is demanding systemic digital rights and shifting the burden of cybersecurity away from the end user. By bringing tech education to adults, she is putting an end to the era of teenagers having to act as the “unpaid IT department” to protect their communities from corporate platform failures.

“Why are you going to tell me what to do when you don’t even know how to download a PDF?”

These are the digital architects stepping up to fix the systems they didn’t even make in the first place.

Here’s what the episode digs into:

• Why teaching kids to prompt a chatbot without teaching them who profits or who suffers creating “little consumer robots wearing human suits.”

• The two classes of education forming right now: private schools producing students who can reason, write, and build real relationships while everyone else is being handed AI companions pumped with ads.

• Why young people outside the US are far more hopeful about AI than American Gen Z.

• And why the burden of digital safety doesn’t belong on the end user: it belongs with .com and .gov.

Watch the full episode here:

Now, sometimes (and I say this as an adult myself) adults can look at young people as just tiny, weaker versions of humans.

But the truth is, especially when it comes to tech, they’re smarter than we give them credit for and they deserve a seat at the table shaping the future that they’re going to inherit.

That means the adults either got to get out of the way or step up and act as allies and coaches, not just obstacles and referees blowing the whistle.

It takes real investment. That’s why Young Futures has launched the YF500: a $50 million commitment to back 500 more grassroots organizations over the next 5 years. If you’re a student, a parent, an educator, or anyone who cares about our collective future, check out youngfutures.org to learn how you can apply or support.

Tell us in the comments: how are the kids in your life reacting to AI and what are you doing to guide them?

If you’re looking for a first step in reclaiming your own agency, our AI Go Bag is a guide to taking control of the data you’ve given to your chatbot. Hit subscribe and we’ll send it straight to your inbox!

We’re figuring out how to live well with machines, but we have to remember that we’re building this future for each other. Thank you for joining us on this special series.

— Baratunde

Thanks to the entire Life With Machines team, especially Layne Deyling Cherland and Alie Kilts for editorial and production support.