Teens Share 6 AI Anxieties

Abstract

Teenagers are among the fastest adopters of generative AI, and experience a range of emotions when thinking about its impact today and in the future. Through an Australian AI Youth Council (20 teens aged 13–17, in NSW), we surface six anxieties: distrust of AI's leaders, its environmental cost, and shrinking careers; and, in the classroom, its threat to their thinking, its effect on their creativity, and the fear of punishment for using it. Many concerns were about how adults build, sell and police AI, not teens' own use. This rapid, qualitative paper surfaces what these teens raise as a starting point for the adults shaping their AI future.