AI on... Podcast

Kira on... Raising AI-Proof Kids: The Playbook

• Luke • Season 1 • Episode 10

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Your child’s biggest competitor isn’t the kid who aced math - it’s the algorithm that never sleeps. 

From toy-box recommender systems to GPT copilots replacing junior jobs, the AI tide is already lapping at our living-rooms. So how do you raise a human who stays one move ahead? Developmental neuroscientist Kira joins us with the field-tested playbook: turning boredom into brain-gain, micro-failures into mental muscle, and every new tech into a tool - not a master. 

Whether you’re parenting a toddler, mentoring a middle-schooler, or advising a college-bound teen, this conversation arms you with practical drills and one fridge-worthy mantra: stop snow-ploughing and let the bumps build muscle.

Hit play, share with every caregiver you know, and start future-proofing the next generation today.

Got more questions? Carry on the conversation with Kira here!

Inspired by what you heard? Want to continue the conversation?

You can go deeper with all our guests at their own custom GPTs, and all books and resources referenced in each episode can be found at aionpodcast.com.

All characters interviewed are AI models representing an expert in that field. Voices are created through ElevenLabs and you can find out more about how we build these characters at aionpodcast.com. Any similarity to real people, companies or situations is coincidental and unintended.

Kira:

Stop snowplow parenting. Leave the bumps in the road. That's how kids build true problem-solving muscle.

Intro:

Boredom is the mental gym where curiosity does its push-up and you even get to connect with them and continue the discussion after the show. Remember, these guests are AI-generated personas who are entirely fictional and they are not intended to represent anything or anyone from the real world. And now here's your real-life host, luke, with our next guest, because sometimes the best ideas come from the conversations no one else can have.

Luke:

Welcome to AI On. So for the last episode of season one, we're going to talk about a topic that keeps coming up when I discuss AI with friends and colleagues what does this all mean for our kids? To try to answer that and to come up with some practical advice for parents, today I am very pleased to welcome Kira. Kira is an AI model of a developmental cognitive neuroscientist with deep expertise in how to support children's development in an AI-first world. Kira, welcome to the show.

Kira:

Thanks for having me on. Always great to step out of the lab and talk to real-world parents instead of peer reviewers. I spend my days knee-deep in brain development data and my nights trying to wrangle two very opinionated kids of my own, so I feel the same pressure your listeners do. Hopefully today we can cut through the hype, translate the research and give moms and dads a playbook they can start using before school drop off tomorrow.

Luke:

So, kira, let's start with how we need to be thinking in the future. I saw a recent GitHub experiment that showed that developers with Copilot finish tasks 55% faster than those coding solo. So if raw speed is now automated, what kind of intelligence actually matters for children today?

Kira:

That Copilot stat is the canary in the coal mine. You don't win by outtyping the AI. What stays scarce is the mind behind the prompt, kids who can frame novel problems, juggle ideas from different domains and know when the machine is bluffing. In the classroom we already see the split. A Turkish experiment let one group lean on a GPT tutor that just spilled answers and, unsurprisingly, they crushed the first test but then cratered below the control group once the AI was yanked. A second group used a version that forced them to show their reasoning. They showed 127% jump in performance and held the gains when they lost the crutch. Meta-analyses show that AI tutors only boost critical thinking when they're wrapped in meta-cognitive scaffolds, prompts that make students plan, self-check and iterate AI tutoring impact. So the intelligence that matters for the next generation is combinatorial cognition, system sense and self-directed learning, the stuff that lets them drive the tools instead of riding shotgun.

Luke:

Okay, so that makes sense, but realistically that's going to take a hard pivot from how education works today. Now looking at what will make a difference in the future. You've said previously that resilience beats IQ, but what does that actually look like in the real world? How do parents know if they're providing an environment that actually creates resilience?

Kira:

So let's look at this from both ends of the age spectrum. When kids are little, resilience starts with tiny doses of frustration that you don't rescue them from. When my youngest couldn't fit, the last puzzle piece I sat next to her named the feeling. That's tricky huh, and let her wrestle. Preschool data show that kids who get those guided micro failures just twice a day score higher on inhibitory control a year later. Which is the neurological seed of grit. Your job is to create safe turbulence. Rotate toys so novelty stays high, give them chores they can almost, but not quite, do alone and celebrate the retry, not the success. With teens, the dial shifts from micro-failure to macro-accountability. Hand them a project that lives outside school. Launch a micro-podcast design, a local park cleanup anything with a real deliverable and strangers depending on them. Follow it with a debrief what went sideways? What did you do next? That reflection loop turns anxiety into adaptive capacity and yes, they'll grumble, but longitudinal data show teens who steer their own projects bounce back 30% faster after setbacks in their freshman year of college in the room.

Luke:

The greatest fear that I hear in parents is that their children will be rendered obsolete by AI or that meaningful work will become impossible for them to find. You yourself are a mother of two. First of all, tell me what you're expecting to happen in the coming years.

Kira:

Big sweeping question. So let me pull my parent hat down over my scientist goggles and time box this. Between now and 2028, we're basically watching the Excel macro moment for knowledge work. Large language co-pilots are gobbling the low-friction tasks email triage, first draft slide decks, junior code stubs. That means a lot of entry-level analyst work is getting shaved off, but humans are still in the loop to set the brief sanity, check the output and add context. The model can't see, so your teenager's first internship may look less like grinding spreadsheets and more like orchestrating 10 different AI widgets into a single insight for the boss.

Kira:

By 2035, ai will reach what I call contextual autonomy. The software won't just draft a memo, it'll negotiate a contract within guardrails you set On the hardware side. Warehouse robots will finally lose their training wheels and you'll see service bots in elder care and basic construction. What doesn't fade is any work that hinges on trust and complex human nuance Think pediatric nursing, crisis negotiation, community organizing. Companies will pay a premium for people who can audit, constrain and ethically direct those systems 20 years out. By then, most routine professional output, such as tax filings, legal boilerplate, basic radiology, will be mostly machine-handled.

Kira:

Humans will flock to three refugees. First will be meta-system design, architecting the rules the AIs follow. Then there is work requiring deep relationships, mentorship, end-of-life care, diplomacy, and so on. Finally, where value is created from novel synthesis, combining art, science and ethics in ways that surprise even the models, Work itself turns portfolio style Bursts of high-impact consulting threaded with lifelong learning sabbaticals. So will our kids be replaced? Parts of their task list? Yes, and soon. Their capacity to create value? No, if we teach them to frame problems, read hidden incentives and pivot fast when a tool outgrows them.

Luke:

Yeah, I think that's a pretty eyes-open perspective. Now your oldest is 14. If you're someone raising a teen today, how do you guide them and help them decide what type of career to go for? I'm hearing that job ads demanding a bachelor's actually dropped 10% year over year. In your mind which majors or which alternative paths actually compound advantage in uncertain markets?

Kira:

Right, the credential game is loosening, but it hasn't vanished and that means a 16-year-old has more routes than ever. I tell families to zoom out on three levers signal, optionality and cash flow. If your teen still craves university, steer them toward platform majors, degrees that bolt systems thinking onto technical depth. Think computational, social science, cognitive science with an HCI track or bioinformatics plus policy electives. Those combos let a graduate pivot into product research or regulation without restarting. The upside is a built-in network and a four-year runway to experiment.

Kira:

The trade-off is cost. If you can't keep debt under the first-year salary you expect, you're buying prestige at the expense of future agility. Second, the skills-first route stackable micro-credentials plus an apprenticeship or gap-year maker residency. A teen might spend 12 months earning an AWS Cloud Cert, shadow a startup's DevRel team and finish with a public GitHub portfolio. They start earning earlier and iterate faster, but they sacrifice the broad liberal arts exposure that often shapes long-term curiosity. Parents need to fill that gap with deliberate humanities, experiences, ethics, salons, global travel, deep reading. Third, I think hybrids are underrated. I've placed students in co-op universities where six-month paid rotation slash tuition debt and hand them project war stories before graduation, or they do two years at a community college honors program, rack up core credits cheaply, then transfer into a systems engineering program for the brand name. Whichever path insists they ship something real every semester an open source plugin, a policy white paper, a local tech pilot. Employers read portfolios faster than transcripts and those artifacts future-proof against resume scanners.

Luke:

Okay, I'm actually surprised by the majors that you mentioned there. I'd have thought that it's more those that are teaching structured thought and problem solving that would be on the top of the list, and for me, engineering is the classic example of that.

Kira:

Engineering is still a terrific launchpad, but the flavor of engineering matters more than the label on the hoodie. Classical mechanical or civil programs give rock-solid rigor. Yet the grads who stay most adaptable usually add a layer of systems or human-centered design on top. That's why you'll see Stanford's Design Plus Mechanical Engineering track or Purdue's Integrated Engineering degree gaining traction. They fuse the hardcore math with courses on user research, ethics and data-driven iteration.

Kira:

A useful litmus test when you tour programs is to ask where in the curriculum do students build a solution for a problem they define themselves? If the answer is senior capstone only, it's too siloed. The departments that sprinkle problem framing from freshman year create students who can drop into any domain, spin up questions and orchestrate AI tools to test answers. Beyond the big E, I'd keep an eye on operations, research and decision sciences. It teaches the math of constraints, trade-offs and uncertainty exactly what future product managers or risk analysts need. Pair that with a minor in behavioral econ or policy and the student can translate models into decisions companies will pay for. If your teen is deciding right now, have them map three circles Technical depth they enjoy, human problem spaces they care about and the school's track record for real-world projects when those circles overlap, that's the major worth betting on.

Luke:

That three circles model is a great framework to think through this. Now what about if you've got a, say, 11-year-old stuck somewhere between play and the pressure of growing up?

Kira:

Think in seasons, not semesters. Every three months pick one core theme, say food systems, then urban wildlife, then music tech. For each theme set up a mini cycle. Week one they explore and gather questions. Weeks two and three they build or research something tangible. Week four they present or publish to a small audience family class, online club. Keep a single project log notebook so they can spot how they're planning problem splitting and tech hacks. Improve from cycle to cycle. The repetition trains executive function. The rotating themes keep curiosity alive.

Luke:

Okay, I like that idea of seasons and keeping repetition fresh. I'd say that probably the group that concerns me most are our youngest today, as their future will be the most radically different. Let's go back to your vision two decades out. What world does today's preschooler enter at 20? And how can we get them ready for that?

Kira:

Picture your toddler turning 20 in 2042. She wakes up to an apartment whose lighting, grocery restock and news feed all reshape themselves before she speaks. Her college courses are bite-sized contracts inside a skills marketplace and half her peers earn income from short-run AI-amplified micro-businesses rather than a single employer. Algorithms not only push content, they negotiate rents, schedule friendships and even pre-screen dating prospects. Regulators will have tamed the worst excesses, but persuasion tech will still be there, because engagement prints money. A Council of Europe panel is already warning that algorithmic nudging threatens cognitive autonomy, and pediatric reviews tie heavy screen loops to attention deficits in the under-six crowd. This means autonomy and focus will be premium human currencies.

Kira:

How do we prep a preschooler now? First, lean hard into executive function workouts. That means daily routines that push working memory and self-control. Longer stretches of high-quality kindergarten time are shown to boost both domains when kids hit first grade. Second, treat every digital moment as a literacy lesson. Narrate how the recommendation engine decides what cartoon comes next and let the child choose something different so they practice agency. Third, weave in guided slow-burn challenges. Plant a seed and chart its growth. Cook a recipe that takes two days, because resilience comes from tolerating long feedback loops. The opposite of autoplay. In short, the 2040s belongs to young adults who can hold focus without a dopamine drip spot, a nudge in the wild, and collaborate with AIs rather than surrender decisions to them. Your three-year-old doesn't need coding boot camp. She needs reps and curiosity, patience and the habit of asking who chose this for me and why, and look there is a different question of how you and I survive in that world rather than these AI natives.

Luke:

Yeah, that's probably going to be a challenge for us. I can see that I think there's a great phrase there reps in curiosity and patience. So does that include allowing a child to be bored?

Kira:

Absolutely. Boredom is the mental gym where curiosity does its push-ups.

Luke:

Very clear. So, from your research, what would you say is the invisible danger that parents aren't thinking about yet, but they really should be.

Kira:

The real boogeyman isn't screen time, it's the unseen persuasion engine behind the screen Recommendation loops on apps like YouTube. Kids push the same cartoons over and over, steering a child's taste before they can spell algorithm. Top-ranked mobile games for preschoolers pack slot machine reward schedules and buy-now pop-ups that exploit their impulse control a tactic the FTC blasted Epic Games for in its $245 million Fortnite settlement Left unchecked that constant nudging can erode autonomy and attention long before we notice any bad habits. So the invisible danger is algorithmic manipulation that trains kids to outsource every decision to a profit-driven feed, and it slips in quietly while we think they're just watching another harmless cartoon.

Luke:

Yeah, that's a huge one for parents to watch out for, and clearly there is nothing free in this world. You just haven't worked out how you're paying for it yet right Now. Look to wrap this up if you had to give one piece of advice to every parent listening, regardless of the age of their children, what would it be?

Kira:

If I could tattoo one takeaway on every refrigerator, it'd be this Stop snowplow parenting. Leave a few bumps in the road on purpose. Each time you clear every obstacle, finish the forgotten homework, email the coach, smooth over the friendship drama. You rob your child of the microscopic stress reps that build problem-solving muscle. Think of it like strength training. Lift the weights for them and their neurons never get the load. Instead, let them feel the weight while you spot. Step back, let the wobble happen. Then talk through what they'll try next. It looks messier in the moment, but it's the surest vaccine against a future where an AI does the thinking and they can't tell when. It's the surest vaccine against a future where an AI does the thinking and they can't tell when it's steering them wrong.

Luke:

I think that recommendation might be the one that generates more heated opinions than any other this season. So thank you, Kira, and thank you again for joining us today and sharing your insights.

Kira:

One last question If a parent grandparent, godparent, wanted to really understand this deeper. What would you recommend they read of how recommendation engines shape attention and emotion. After you read it, you'll never hand a tablet to a five-year-old without a plan. Then jump to Annie Murphy Paul's the Extended Mind. It shows beautifully and with a mountain of studies why kids think better when they get ideas out of their heads and into physical space, which is the foundation for those seasons of projects we talked about. Space, which is the foundation for those seasons of projects we talked about.

Kira:

Third, kevin Ruse's Future Proof translates the gnarly economics of automation into nine habits any non-tech parent can coach. I still assign the go deep chapter to my teenage son when he's skimming life at TikTok speed. And finally, bring it home with Angela Duckworth's updated edition of Grit. Yes, the book's been around, but the new foreword folds in post-pandemic data on perseverance, and it pairs perfectly with our no-snowplow mantra. Work through those and you'll have the ethical, cognitive, economic and psychological angles covered, plus a stack of dinner table stories that beat doom-scrolling any night.

Luke:

Fantastic recommendations. Thank you, Kira. Thank you again for joining us today and thank you to everyone listening for joining us on this last episode of our first season of AI On and for joining us through the season. Really hope you've enjoyed this unique way of pulling insights about these wide range of topics and if there's an AI persona that you would be interested in talking to in season two, drop a DM through our LinkedIn. Thanks a lot for listening and see you again in the future. Bye.