Bet you have a digital native at home

The year is 2025, and if we had been talking about AI as something that is round the corner until now, we are aware that we are part of Artificial Intelligence. In that sense, we are contributing towards it. Whatever we feed AI becomes part of its knowledge. This is our discussion in the next episode of the podcast, Mosaic. Our guest is Waheeda bint Abdulaziz al Aziziyah, board member of Ahmed bin Majid International School. She is a person who has been in the field of education globally, regionally and now in the Sultanate of Oman. According to her, the important factor is to spread awareness on how to use AI. The tendency could be just to copy and paste, but originality matters and authenticity of content matters. With so much information at their fingertips, students today have vast knowledge, and Waheeda pointed out that the traditional role of teachers is evolving. A teacher’s role could be more of a learning facilitator, she pointed out. Teachers of the past were looked upon as people with all the answers. So, is everything going the wrong way?

The saving grace is human beings’ emotional intelligence. We also have our experiences that add to our intelligence when we analyse knowledge and implement it. Emotions, it seems, have a very important role to play. What the young digital natives may not realise is that emotional maturity requires experience, and this is where teachers and elders in the family need to be appreciated.

Another realisation during the discussion was the data itself. What you write and share with AI becomes, in one way or another, the property of AI. If that is so, can you imagine if people were to feed wrong information and that could be stored as facts?

Surely, this would be looked into by the experts.

Digital natives are technologically savvy and adept at using various digital devices and applications, such as smartphones, tablets and social media platforms. Their adaptability to new tools is well known, as they tend to quickly adapt to new technologies and trends, embracing changes and innovations in the digital landscape. So, they might be the buddies to have because everyone has to go through the transformation towards AI. Digital natives are known to have the multitasking ability. Sometimes, it might leave others annoyed because of the brief attention they can contribute to a conversation. The non-verbal communication skills of eye contact might need to be actively reintroduced. They are skilled at processing vast amounts of information quickly, thanks to their exposure to fast-paced media. So, the changes that might come in the future may not be stressful at all for them. As for the rest of the generation, staying informed and learning new skills is of utmost importance. Digital natives are known to be innovative, and they like to use technology. So, they are natural at content creation. Think about it—the journey of social media and how millions of people across the world are creating content for social media. The good thing is, the digital natives, who were born into the world of technology and the Internet, are also known to appreciate authenticity. Surely, they can be a guiding force. AI is here to stay and expand into every part of our lives. It is just a question of time for it to smooth out the teething problems. Maybe it might take time for us to sit in an autonomous car. It might take a while for us to trust a self-driving car because, as humans, we have a habit of worrying about consequences. As Waheeda reflected on one of the speakers at the AI summit who was a professional judge, “Whom would you hold accountable if an autonomous car made a road accident? Who is at fault? The passenger, the car company, or the service provider?”

Plenty to think about.

It would be interesting to observe how the digital natives think when they hit their 60s and 70s.

The writer is a senior editor of Observer