Fear spreads faster than understanding.
That has always been true. But in moments of rapid technological change, fear doesn’t just spread — it teaches. Quietly, persistently, and often without our noticing.
Artificial intelligence has become a powerful teacher in this way.
Not because of what it is capable of, but because of the stories being told about it.
Children hear fragments of these stories all the time:
Jobs will disappear.
Machines will replace people.
If you don’t keep up, you’ll be left behind.
Even when these ideas aren’t directed at them, children absorb the tone. They sense adult anxiety long before they understand adult language. And in the absence of context, fear fills the gaps.
We don’t need to deny the reality of AI to recognize this.
AI is real.
It is powerful.
And it is changing how the world works.
Change is good. But fear has never been a good teacher.
Fear narrows attention.
Fear shortcuts curiosity.
Fear pushes children toward compliance or avoidance rather than understanding. When fear becomes the primary lens through which children encounter the future, they don’t become prepared — they become cautious, self-protective, and hesitant to engage.
This is not resilience.
It is withdrawal.
We confuse compliance with understanding. We respond to uncertainty by withholding the very tools young people will need to learn how to think—most notably artificial intelligence. In doing so, we mistake protection for preparation.
That is not the only story available. Children don’t need protection from the future.
They need orientation within it.
They need help understanding what machines can do — and what machines cannot. They need language for distinguishing between automation and judgment, between information and meaning, between efficiency and purpose.
Most of all, they need adults who are willing to talk about AI without panic.
It’s also worth remembering that many technologies that once inspired fear eventually fade into the background of everyday life. Electricity was once dangerous, mysterious, and deeply disruptive. So was the internet. Over time, these technologies became less remarkable — not because they were insignificant, but because they became infrastructure.
These technologies, and many more before them, stopped being the focus of our attention and started being the environment in which life unfolded. Artificial intelligence is likely to follow a similar path. As it becomes more ubiquitous, more embedded, and more ordinary, the question will no longer be what is AI doing to us? but rather, how are we choosing to live, learn, and grow within a world where it simply exists? Fear tends to peak at the moment of novelty. Orientation matters more in the long run.
In the next piece, we’ll look at what fear teaches children — and what happens when adults become the primary interpreters instead.
©2025 Richard Tavener
