This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Michele Ragon, a 46-year-old employee communications business partner at LinkedIn, based in the Bay Area. The following has been edited for length and clarity
My 11-year-old son just finished fifth grade, and earlier this year, he was diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia. He has trouble remembering the order of things and organizing his thoughts
I got him a new computer for Christmas, which he can use to access Copilot. The first time we used AI together was to help research for a school essay on hurricanes
The two of us were working with Copilot open on the side of his essay notes. Being able to go back and forth with the AI and ask it questions was eye-opening for him. He was able to get much more context from the research he was doing
Then, a few weeks later, one night, I came up behind him while he was working on his computer. Until I started asking questions, I had no idea he was building his own video game with AI
I think for him, the simplicity of using AI is what he loves. He doesn’t have to be a coder to be creative in this way. This is a perfect example of AI not taking away from humanity or creativity
It took my son less than 8 hours total to build a video game with Copilot
There’s a gaming platform called Steam where my son sometimes browses to play free game demos. He doesn’t have a paid account on the site, but he explores the games on it
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In school, he had read a book called “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH,” and something about this book caught his attention. It reminded him of a civilization-building game he had seen on Steam that he thought was really cool
He told me he just started asking Copilot questions like, “Help me build this game. Here’s my idea. How could I build this game?” Then the model started walking him through the steps
When I asked him how long it took to build, he said it was four days of working with Copilot for an hour or two a day until he got a workable version
He said AI never gets mad at him
One of the best parts of working with AI, he said, is that AI never gets frustrated when he asks a question over again; it just repeats the answer in a different way
His favorite prompt is asking, “What does this mean?” If he gets an error code he doesn’t understand, he’ll copy it back into Copilot, and it will walk him through it. If it’s still too technical, he’ll ask the question again, and it will simplify the response even further. He also uses voice mode to talk to the model when he finds it hard to type out what he wants to ask
He said the hardest part is that he can get stuck with the same error, and neither he nor the AI can fix it or diagnose the problem. He doesn’t have the maturity yet to understand that when that happens, he has to do something different, or prompt it in a different way, or he’s going to keep getting the same results
When somethings not working, if he can, he’ll move on or try to work around it. For example, he changed the rats to smiley faces because the game kept crashing
I have worries about his AI use, but the creative benefits are huge
I think it was a low-risk environment in the specific game that he was building. I wasn’t concerned that inappropriate content or responses would come up. Still, I wonder whether he has the ability to spot if something is incorrect, or if AI has given him information that is not right?
I also think about the games he’s seeing online on this gaming platform that anyone can post to
We like to let our kids explore on their own and then show us what they’re learning, but as a parent, have I put the proper parental controls on what my son’s seeing and what he’s able to build online?
However, building a game was entirely my son’s idea, executed with the help of AI, and he had no other way to do it because he doesn’t know how to code. I think, for him, using AI almost amplified his creative juices because there’s a positive reward in actually making something he can use and play with
I think schools should teach kids how to use AI appropriately
I think schools that aren’t teaching students how to use AI are doing a huge disservice. I work for a tech company, but I have conversations with friends who don’t work in tech, and they are using AI in so many ways, too
A friend who was job-hunting told me she had Claude help her practice for interviews, and she used it daily in her job search. Even when Googling something, you get an AI-generated response right away
AI is coming so fast and furious, and I think it’s a disservice that we’re not teaching kids how to use it in an appropriate way
I asked my son if there was anything else that he wanted to build, or anything else he’s excited about with AI. His face lit up to talk about the next game idea that he has. As a parent, it’s amazing to see your kid get that positive reinforcement
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