Katherine Rundell argues that generative AI poses serious risks to young people’s learning, wellbeing and capacity for independent thought. Writing from her experience as a children’s author and Oxford fellow, she says schools face a choice between adopting technology for efficiency and protecting the habits of reading, concentration, experimentation and resilience that she considers essential to education and democracy.

She also warns that AI can enable disinformation, surveillance, autonomous weapons, environmental damage and greater inequality, particularly if controlled by authoritarian or exploitative actors. While acknowledging possible benefits in medicine, disability support, law and disaster warnings, she cites studies suggesting AI-assisted learners may give up sooner and perform worse without the technology; she says data centres’ annual electricity demand could exceed Japan’s by the decade’s end.