For 15-year-old Charles Ansevin, in Gates Mills, Ohio, ChatGPT is like a friend.
"We've been able to have very meaningful, you know, intelligent discussions."
But Dorian Prado, 16, of Forth Worth, Texas, says he's "very against AI."
"It makes it to where thinking is optional, and that should never be the case," says Prado. "You don't think, you don't learn. It's making us dumber."
The arrival of generative artificial intelligence has sparked fierce debates among adults about what it should and shouldn't be used for. But what's it like to grow up and learn in the age of AI? NPR put that question to seven teenagers across the country.
Tessa Klein, 18, a recent high school graduate from Oradell, N.J., says she's found AI to be helpful – it's provided useful feedback on essays and walked her through complex science concepts.
"I think it's just this opportunity to have sort of like a private tutor that maybe other students cannot have or cannot afford," she says.
For 18-year-old Dammie'on McColley, of Indianapolis, AI is so much bigger – and more worrisome – than a helpful online tutor.
"I don't want it to, you know, kind of throw off jobs and things like that. That's [people's] only way of bringing in income to feed their families. And if we have a machinery that's taking over that, then what are they going to do?"
NPR also spoke with Ethan Ansevin, also of Gates Mills, Rida Desai of River Edge, N.J., and Natalie Vadakkan of Oradell, N.J. Click the audio link above to hear what they said.
This reporting was supported by the Omidyar Network's Reporters in Residence program.
Edited by: Nicole Cohen
Audio story produced by: Lauren Migaki and Janet Woojeong Lee
Copyright 2026 NPR
