Girls Who Code CEO: the most discerning people in the AI debate aren’t in Silicon Valley. They’re teenage girls
· Fortune
When leaders of the biggest artificial intelligence companies start warning that their technology could end humanity, it can leave one feeling powerless. Technology that can take over our most critical systems and find ways to evade human commands is astonishing and frightening at the same time. If the people building the technology are uncertain of its capabilities, is there any hope? Many might think we should pull the plug and stop AI before this scenario plays out. Some of us see potential to change the course of AI, and that hope comes from a group whose voice is rarely consulted – teen girls.
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We have long known that women adopt AI at a lower rate than men and make up only 22% of the AI workforce. The latest Girls Who Code study, Agency in the Age of AI, suggests that teen girls’ lower usage is not simply disengagement. It also reflects their deliberate boundary-setting around privacy, safety, accuracy, creativity, and the technology’s environmental impact. Girls choose privacy over personalization (71% vs. 62%). They are also more likely to wait for AI to be tested (65% vs. 53%) and avoid it if it causes harm (45% vs. 33%).
Girls are discerning about their AI use, making intentional judgments about where it belongs in their lives. The clearest proof of this choice is what happens when girls are empowered. The research showed that girls who reported high AI agency use it at a higher rate than boys – 88% vs. 83%. The AI gender gap closes and reverses when girls are empowered. The gap is not a lack of ability or interest. When they can decide, girls don’t opt out; they engage on their own terms.
The desire for agency over AI is showing up across age groups. New York City, the nation’s largest school system, instituted a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative AI through eighth grade, while allowing limited, supervised use in high school. NYC school leaders are not rejecting the technology. They are being discerning about how they adopt AI for their students. This summer, a South Philadelphia library ran workshops called “Avoiding AI,” helping patrons learn how to turn off AI features on their devices. The Philly workshop followed a Maine librarian’s version that drew requests from dozens of librarians asking how to build similar events. As the Maine librarian put it, the movement “isn’t about rejecting technology altogether so much as it is about advocating for more control, agency, and freedom in how people use technology.” The teenage girl setting limits on a chatbot and the library patron learning to switch off AI on their phone are seeking the same thing. Both want to decide when, where, and how this technology belongs in their lives.
These are people pushing for a say in how this technology enters their lives. Companies should meet that demand. They should make opt-outs clear, explain how AI features use people’s information, and create channels for users to share feedback and influence what is built. That principle is beginning to show up in the institutions adopting AI. Microsoft and the AFT recently released a National AI Safety & Privacy Standard that establishes these types of guardrails.
The demand for “Avoiding AI” workshops and the New York education department’s pause send an important message to tech companies. People want the ability to control how they use tech, not be automatically opted in. Knowing when not to use a tool is as much a competency as knowing how to use it.
The reasons for hope may not soon come from companies or executives sounding alarms. However, you can see it in the sixteen-year-old girl deciding a chatbot isn’t safe to use, and in all the other groups and individuals practicing that same discernment. Before headlines warned AI could end humanity, teen girls were already setting the standard for AI ethics by practicing discernment. Giving young people the understanding and choice to decide where tech belongs in their lives, and enough agency to shape what comes next, is a reason to have hope.
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