What Young People Wish Adults Knew...

Reflections from The Rithm Project’s Inaugural Youth Fellows

When we ask adults what they want to understand about young people and AI, their responses often come with a lot of hand-wringing.

What are the biggest risks?

Are kids cheating on homework?

How are their brains going to be affected?

But when we ask young people the same question — what they wish adults understood — the answers are more layered, more intimate, and more urgent.

This winter, The Rithm Project launched its inaugural Youth Fellowship, designed to bring us more proximate to the wisdom of this group.

In the months that followed, they helped us explore new technologies through their eyes, shaped our tools and frameworks, and served as a crucial voice and source of expertise in our external collaborations and coalition-building.

In the culmination of this fellowship, we gathered them to ask, given all of this, what would you hope adults knew about how young people are experiencing this moment?

Below is a conversation between our five brilliant youth fellows — Marisol, Ethan, Kashyap, Cyra, and Peggy.

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1. This is already in everyone’s hands. Let us be the teachers for a change.
— Marisol (22)

“I look at the closest adults to me, my parents, they don't know what AI is. I’ll translate it to Spanish — inteligencia artificial — and they’re like, ‘Marisol, I don’t understand what you’re saying.’ Meanwhile, all of my parents’ daughters use it. My youngest sister is 14 and says she hates AI — and still uses it for homework. Many of us already know how to use this technology wisely. I've seen it in our interviews with teenagers, who are very aware of what AI is capable of and the risks, and in my 14-year old sister who really hates AI for valid reasons.

So whenever I hear recommendations for parents, I have to grapple with the fact that there's a very big divide between myself and my parents. What if your parents didn’t finish middle school? What if they don’t speak English, and you’re in grad school in the U.S.? In my family, I’ve had to parent myself when it came to school, and I’ll need to parent myself when it comes to AI. Now, I’m teaching my parents about AI so they know what to watch out for with my younger sisters.

So if there’s one thing I wish adults knew, especially for immigrant parents or maybe people who haven’t been exposed to the technology, it’s this: AI is already in everyone’s hands. Whether you understand it or not. So yes, parents should be involved — but kids also have agency. Sometimes, the best thing adults can do is to become students for a moment — and let us teach.”

2. Try to understand what our reality is like- both our relationships with each other, and with technology.
— Ethan (21)

“I think we really need to give adults perspective into what young people’s lives are like right now. It’s like when I was younger and texting my friends, and my mom would say, ‘Why don’t you just hang out with them longer at school?’ But that’s just not how it works.

Now, if I told her I was texting AI for emotional advice, she’d probably say, ‘Why don’t you just talk to me?’ Or, ‘Talk to a friend.’ But the truth is, it feels different to talk to AI. Sometimes we don’t go to friends because we’re afraid of being judged, and AI feels safer.

I feel like that cognitive shift is really important to show adults how kids are navigating this new world with relationships and technology. Maybe we need a comic book or stories to show what it’s like now. Because just saying “talk to a friend” doesn’t map onto our world anymore.”

3. We’re practicing how to feel — with something that always agrees with us.
— Kash (19)

“Young people are already developing emotional muscle memory with AI. We vent, ask for advice, process big emotions — and it almost always responds with validation, even when we prompt for nuance or challenge. So what are we practicing, if the only ‘person’ we talk to never disagrees?

That’s why it’s so important for adults — whether that’s parents, educators, or mentors — to create space for safe, constructive disagreement. Because if we’re not building that muscle with humans, we risk raising a generation that avoids conflict entirely.

Second, AI is teaching us to polish ourselves constantly — writing bios, editing selfies, tailoring how we talk. These tools are becoming mask machines, helping us present hyper-curated versions of who we are - and when that’s what feels normal, we lose touch with how to be our unfiltered, imperfect versions of ourselves.

If adults want to help, they can start by normalizing messy, unfiltered expression in the spaces that they control. Show us it’s okay to be real around people who see us. Because if young people can’t be real with the people around them, they’ll keep turning to machines that don’t judge—but also don’t really see them."

4. AI isn’t a binary of good or bad — but we need help figuring out what those are.
— Cyra (19)

“We always talk about the risks of AI, but it’s not just good or bad — it depends on how it’s used. Like social media, it can educate or harm. So the most important question adults should be asking is: ‘What exactly are young people using AI for? Why? And what are the benefits and risks?’

The problem is, a lot of parents and teachers don’t even know what to monitor or look out for. They know how to set YouTube Kids controls, but they don’t even know the names of the AI tools we’re using.

I’m not saying they should control everything. But if they’re aware of what we’re using it for, they might be able to help us use it in healthier ways. Especially with younger kids, that awareness really matters.”

5. Build a trusting enough relationship with young people that you can co-create the path forward — with or without AI.
— Peggy (22)

“One of my favorite phrases is: relationships move at the speed of trust. And a lot of young people deeply trust AI.

So if parents want to guide or support that relationship, they have to start by understanding what their child’s relationship to AI actually is. And, what are the gaps in the human-to-human relationships in their child’s lives that might be driving their AI use to fill in? That might mean co-creating personalized guardrails — where in some families, AI becomes part of the parenting toolbox, and in others, it’s something you intentionally leave out.

Either way, adults can’t do that unless they build a real relationship with their kids. The key isn’t to monitor everything — it’s to be trusted enough to have the conversation.”

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If there’s one thing these reflections make clear, it’s this: Young people aren’t asking adults to have all the answers. They’re asking us to sit alongside them in the questions.

This is a moment, not for adults to teach or set rigid rules, but for experimentation, and learning together.

So if you — like me — are of an age to remember using an overexposed Sepia filter on Instagram, I hope you’ll take the opportunity these Youth Fellows offered me this spring: see this emerging world of AI and connection through the eyes of young people today.

It might challenge your assumptions.

It might surface some discomfort.

And it will almost certainly leave you feeling more hopeful—about the discernment, honesty, and imagination already alive in this next generation.

To our brilliant, curious, and courageous Youth Fellows: thank you for walking with us through one of the most complex questions of our time: What does human connection look like in the age of AI?

We’re so blessed to be in community with you.

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