August 6, 2025 • 42 mins
Are your kids making deeper, more meaningful connections to AI chatbots than they are to their friends, family, and even you?
As more kids choose artificial validation over real human connection, it's creating a generation that can't handle authentic relationships or genuine feedback. While schools push AI integration, we're accidentally teaching kids that algorithms understand them better than parents, teachers, or friends do.
Discover how to help your kids use AI as a tool without losing their humanity. Learn the warning signs of AI dependency, understand why current education systems are failing our kids emotionally, and get practical strategies for building real-world resilience in an artificial world.
Listen now to learn how to raise emotionally intelligent humans in an AI-dominated world.
TOPICS DISCUSSED
- The AI Therapy Epidemic - Why kids are turning to chatbots for emotional support and validation instead of trusted adults
- Educational Over-Optimization - How schools have created mouse traps that kill curiosity and natural learning instincts
- The Agency Crisis - Why kids feel powerless in their own education and how this creates learned helplessness
- Loneliness in Plain Sight - The isolation epidemic hitting young men especially hard in our hyper-connected world
- Friction vs. Frictionless - Why we need healthy challenges and why the "easy button" mentality is dangerous
- The Validation Trap - How AI constantly affirms kids without providing the growth that comes from real feedback
- Social Media's Role - The connection between social platforms and the shift toward artificial relationships
- Teacher Agency - How educators can break free from rigid curriculums to create meaningful learning experiences
- The Human Connection Currency - Why authentic relationships will be the most valuable skill in an AI world
- Practical Solutions - Real strategies for balancing AI tools with human
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Are your kids making deeper, more meaningful connections to AI chatbots than they are totheir friends, family, and even you?
As more kids choose artificial validation over real human connection, it's creating ageneration that can't handle authentic relationships or genuine feedback.
While schools push AI integration, we're accidentally teaching kids that algorithmsunderstand them better than their parents, teachers, or friends do.
(00:22):
So today we're gonna talk about how you can help your kids use AI as a tool without losingtheir humanity.
We'll talk about the warning signs of AI dependency, understand why current educationsystems are failing our kids emotionally, and get practical strategies for building real
world resilience in an artificial world.
So hang out as we try to discover how to raise emotionally intelligent humans in an AIdominated world.
(00:50):
Hi there, is BroBots, the podcast formerly known as The Fit Mess, and along with Jason,I'm Jeremy, and this is a podcast for men who want to use AI safely to manage their mental
health.
And our conversation today is really a continuation of one that we've had on this show forsome time now, as we've been talking more and more about how so many people are using AI
to manage their mental health, whether they don't have access to human mental healththrough therapy or counseling, things like that.
(01:16):
People are turning to AI because they are finding a lot of validation.
They're finding a lot of advice, good and bad.
ah And it's creating a lot of opportunity for people to get help that they need.
But it's also creating a lot of danger for people that don't really know how to navigateit well.
And so as I mentioned, this is sort of a continuation.
uh I posted something on LinkedIn recently.
I'll just read it to you.
(01:36):
said, the danger of AI therapy isn't that it doesn't work.
The danger is that it works too well.
Perfect responses, instant availability, zero judgment.
relationships can't compete with that level of artificial perfection.
We're accidentally making human connection feel inadequate.
this one got an interesting response from a guy named Scott Merkel.
He responded saying,
Jeremy, you nailed it.
(01:56):
While everyone is arguing about cognitive offloading and brain rot in education, which istotally off base in my opinion, this is the real issue, outsourcing all types of
relationships to AI, girlfriends, therapy mentors.
In a therapeutic context, one of the most nuanced things a mental health professional cando
is use a belief in the other person's potential to challenge them and push them beyondtheir comfort zone.
You would need an MA in counseling psychology to even know how to prompt for that level ofyoung people and disenfranchised folks want validation.
(02:23):
Our systems and institutions have offered them that.
and or they became jaded about their ability to navigate these systems.
Our education system is a great example of failing so many kids and not validating theirstrengths.
The trust has eroded and they shift to AI.
This is the problem we should all be paying attention to.
Naturally, I looked up Scott's background to try to understand who he is and a little bitof his context.
(02:45):
And what I found was very compelling.
He's one of the people with boots on the ground to try to help solve this problem as weexplore more about how to use AI in our real lives, but also try to hang on to our
humanity and what it is that makes us different from machines.
So we invited Scott to join us here on the show and have a conversation about what he'sseeing working directly with young people and where the school systems are letting them
(03:06):
down and where AI is starting to fill in the gaps for better and for worse.
so we'll talk more with Scott about that right after this.
Our guest today is Scott Merkel.
He's a school counselor and founder of the Impact League.
It's a program that helps young people take awesome ideas and make them happen in the realworld to help others.
He's also interested in how things like AI are changing school systems and how we thinkabout ourselves.
(03:27):
And Scott, you and I connected on LinkedIn a few days ago, really in response to somethingI posted, which was in response to something we talked about on our show.
And it's how we're turning so much of our AI therapy over to AI.
Jason, you were sharing recently that mental health is like the number one thing peopleare using AI
for these days.
And you had some concerns about how people are doing more and more of our outsourcing ofnot only therapy, but our actual human relationships.
(03:53):
What are the concerns that you have about this?
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the world that I've been occupying for the last coupleyears in education, a lot of the conversation has been about the actual production of work
and cognitive offloading.
there was a recent study done by some folks at MIT that gained a lot of traction.
(04:16):
I'm sure you've seen it.
And there's just so much conversation about the function of school and learning and thecognitive offloading of that.
For me, that's a non-issue.
I think there's plenty of evidence out there that suggests that humans have ah someintrinsic motivations, some natural curiosity, some natural inclination to learn.
(04:37):
I don't think that stuff goes away with AI, but the bigger concern I think, and we've seenthis play out for young people, especially over the last decade, is just the loneliness
epidemic, ah continued isolation, continued push away from
trusted connections and relationships into more siloed spaces where they are ultimatelyinteracting with algorithms ah that change their thinking and really take away their
(05:10):
humanity in a lot of ways.
And so I think ah it's not even a conversation education right now, which I think it needsto be.
And I think that's part of the AI framework and policy stuff that gets talked about inschools.
in a lot of places is still not codified and doesn't exist in the way that, like, how dowe teach young people that there are some great use cases for AI and this is what that
(05:34):
looks like and how do we develop some fluency around that and we don't want to outsourceour humanity.
Like, that's the quickest way for us to, you know, a few generations from now to not bearound anymore.
m
Yeah, I mean, it's, kind of crazy that you mentioned the idea that kids are feelingisolated and alone and we're supposed to be more connected than ever.
(05:57):
But do you feel that the personification of the individual and social media comes down tokind of our own mental cognitive map trying to go through and remap the value of self back
to whatever it is this presentation layer is that we're, calling social media.
and trying to create this interaction where human beings just feel disconnected fromthemselves because they look at this thing as supposed to be reflection of who they are.
(06:23):
And they kind of know it's not.
And they're trying to live up to their own ideals that they're putting on themselves thatare a mirrored reflection of what their social group says they should be.
But I guess my question to you is, since you're working in this space, what's the judo toget out of it for kids?
(06:44):
Because...
I mean, I've got two daughters.
They're 20 and 24.
They came up right around the time of social media.
And no one like Jeremy because his kids are quite a bit younger and they're more steepedin it than my kids are.
And I don't see a simple way to fix this problem from a continued use perspective.
(07:08):
know China's gone through and they basically limit kids to like two hours a day of socialmedia.
um
they've had some success with, but man, I don't know, like two hours of doom scroll, it'sprobably enough to taint things pretty well.
So don't know what the right amount is, what the right portion is, and I guess I'm hopingyou have some insight.
(07:32):
Yeah, I mean, I think you're a technologist, Jason, so you'd know more about the ins andouts of the manipulation and the traps that are created psychologically for even somebody
like myself who understands psychologically what's happening physiologically and ournervous systems are not uh in position to be able to navigate this world.
(07:53):
And of course, kids don't know any of that.
They're just trying to make a sense of their identity, especially as they come intoadolescence.
But I think
where I'm trying to work in particular is uh social media is obviously a huge problem, butthink one of the, and AI will be a continuation of that I think in terms of what kids have
(08:16):
struggled with in the last decade plus is this idea that they don't see themselves in thesystem.
They don't have any voice.
They don't have any agency.
They don't have any
sense of co-creation or sharing a power and in that they lose some validation for who theyare and what their identity is.
(08:38):
There's a lot of, of course, over optimization that's happened in education, likeoptimizing for all these things.
And so in a lot of ways we're treating kids less human to optimize for these things.
We're not validating them and they don't have any agency in the process.
And so it feels very transactional.
And so they
(08:58):
look for a place where they can feel some validation and comfort.
And I think the downstream implications of that are we've just created a lot of learnedhelplessness, we've created some fragility.
ah And these are things that I think we have to look back at ourselves as adults in thesystem and go, like, what are we doing?
We have created this mousetrap that really stunts curiosity, stunts the innate desire forindividuals to learn.
(09:26):
ah
essentially being counting.
so going back to the MIT study, the idea that AI has ruined education is a farce to mebecause it's, Jason, to your point, it's a mirror back on the system.
If the system was operating effectively, wouldn't be...
(09:50):
Intrinsic motivation is uh predicated on self-determination theory.
It's autonomy, it's competence, it's relatedness.
If those things are happening in a meaningful way in the environment, like there's notthis desire to take the path of least resistance.
So that path has always been there.
I used to be calling, you know, I had a friend named Alex Engel or something.
(10:10):
He was my AI, right?
And he had all the answers to the homework.
ah So the path of least resistance looks different now, but it doesn't change themechanics of like what's happening in the system itself.
So to me, that is...
directly where we need to be working as adults to go like we need to give up tent that wecreated around what's actually important and what work we're doing and we need to bring
(10:38):
kids into the process and give them some agency and treat them like human beings.
And I think that really goes a long way.
I'm oversimplifying it.
It might seem a little esoteric, but I've done some work in that space and I've just seenthe
the results from kids with no agency just like, okay, tell me what to do.
They're just so trained into that, into that mode to then have any agency to go create anddesign something that is important to them and gives them some sense that they have some
(11:08):
agency and ownership over what can happen in the
give me an example or two of the kids you've worked with that are struggling with this,that don't have that agency, that are sort of like, what does that look like in your
office, on the campus?
who is that kid walking down the hall?
What is he dealing with on a day-to-day basis?
And what does that look like?
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the best exercises that we can do as adults is, it's been along time since we all sat in a classroom.
(11:34):
And so one of the things that I've tried to do every year is be a student for a day.
And that's human design, that's empathy, right?
And that's something that AI can't do.
AI can, you know, ah simulate trying to be empathetic and talking about what thatexperience is like, but it can't live it as close as you might.
uh
(11:55):
as a human being in kind of a surrogate way.
So I think for kids, it's we've created, it's twofold.
So one, we've created this system by which it's like uh becomes zero sum competitive toget to this place, which is higher education in a lot of ways.
And I've worked in public schools for a long time as well.
(12:16):
And there's a lot of that there.
It's like, I have to take all the AP classes.
I have to check all the boxes.
I have to do all the things.
And it becomes just this exercise of stuffing the quote unquote resume.
And what that looks like in practice for a kid is they wake up at, I don't know, 6.30, 6a.m.
and they get to school.
(12:37):
An example of a kid I followed, we went to uh their one elective for the day, which islike graphic design.
And that was fun.
And then we went to honors chemistry, took a test for 90 minutes, went to AP WorldHistory.
took another test for 90 minutes and then went to pre-calc.
And by the time we're in pre-calc, you know, I'm struggling to keep my eyes open.
(13:01):
I'm doodling.
There's been no opportunity to move.
There's been no opportunity to discuss.
There's been no opportunity to uh get any type of feedback other than to sit there, rotememorization and dump information or listen to a lecture.
Graphic design aside a little bit, but those same kids then go to extracurriculars.
(13:22):
They go
to music sports, theater, scouts, whatever it may be, they're not getting home ahsometimes until eight, nine in the evening.
They haven't eaten.
We've just taken these things that sound crazy.
That's a crazy day for any one of us in terms of a work day.
And to do that day in and day out ah in search of this thing that we've all determined isimportant, I think is...
(13:48):
ah
it's really challenging.
So when they come in, think they just feel they're just trying to survive.
There's no sense of like, don't have, they don't even have the space to sit and likeunpack whether they should be doing this.
Like they feel like they have to.
(14:08):
And that's just the messaging that they've been given from the jump.
So do you feel like administrators and folks that make curriculum are focusing on thewrong KPIs?
So I mean, they're data-driven and they're trying to elicit certain results, but they'renot taking into account the physiological, the psychological, and the emotional toll that
(14:29):
driving and pushing this direction actually take on individuals.
And as far as I can tell, we're trying to use AI to elicit a certain response out of kidsin terms of putting them through a certain curriculum criteria and trying to get them
strive them towards a certain output or a certain outcome.
But we don't do anything to measure mental health of kids.
(14:50):
Like, we really just don't.
Like, there's not a mental health scorecard.
There's not a class on how to deal with shit in schools.
And there should be.
I mean, we don't teach kids how to balance a checkbook or how to pay rent or any of thosepieces, but we'll push them through like trig and geometry, like not really practical
skills.
And we'll do story problems that, you know,
(15:11):
This is how fast a how long a train takes to go from somewhere in Paris to somewhere inLondon.
And there's a schedule for that.
Like I don't really need, that's not really a skill I need, but I need some more practicalskills and we're like bypassing these practical skills and putting them in these
situations even as while they're in school, when they're leaving school, where they're notprepared, but we're also putting them at a disadvantage while they're in school to push
(15:34):
them towards KPIs that, you know, honestly are probably not really going to be relevantanymore because
With the advent of AI, a lot of these jobs that we're talking about pushing them towardsthat require a college degree are just not gonna be there in 10 years.
Probably even sooner than that.
schools are titanic in terms of their curriculum and how they actually can transform andmove things.
(15:58):
It takes a long time and most of time they can't slow down before they hit an iceberg.
It sounds very much so like we're heading towards an iceberg and like there's a lot ofpeople waving their hands in the air saying,
we're gonna run into this thing as AI becomes our prevalent in the school and in schoolsthemselves.
Are we just kind of hosed?
I guess that's my real question to you.
(16:21):
don't think we're hosed, but I think there's a lot of step back and reflection that needsto happen on the part of the educators.
There's identity there, and I don't want to treat that as if that is easy to think throughand reflect upon.
But it's a change in identity from being the holder of all the knowledge and theinformation and the content to a co-creator because to your point, Jason, we don't know
(16:48):
where
It's going to be in 10 years.
And I think we have to relinquish some of that control.
It's a compliance and control model right now.
And what it has ended up doing downstream or, you know, the misaligned incentives or theKPIs like you were talking about has just created this over pathologizing of childhood.
(17:09):
And, you know, I think John Heist probably talked about that a little bit in both hisbooks, Coddling of the American Mind and The Anxious Generation, but
you're taking kids that are generally fine and putting them in a place where they are nolonger fine because be it the expectations, the environment, the ask of them, the lack of
(17:30):
validation, the lack of true human connection in a place that's supposed to be anopportunity to learn and develop a lot of the skills that you mentioned, it's just not
what's happening.
I think that's kind of the
we're going towards a place where, and we're already there, right?
(17:53):
I think about young men in particular who are less likely to form, ah especially ifthey're isolated through adolescence, like they're less likely to form these tight
relationships in the same way.
And I also have daughters, but in the same way that girls might, females are much better,I think, at maintaining a network and staying in touch with them.
(18:13):
But young males, you could be a young male
orders your coffee online, picks it up, you don't have to talk to anybody, you get yourAmazon delivery, you get your groceries delivered, you interact with an AI girlfriend or
AI therapist, and you play games all day, and you might gamble online.
(18:36):
You don't have to talk to a human.
And you can still, we've made it.
just described my dream world.
That was amazing.
But it's dangerous.
Yeah, you're right, it's dangerous.
it's completely frictionless and you need friction for growth.
And so I think we've removed, we've created all these points of quote unquote friction inour systems, but they're the wrong points of friction where the right points of friction
(19:05):
would be how do we create kids that are not fragile but anti-fragile?
And the only way to do that is in
like true relational environments where there is the messy middle.
There are these opportunities for feedback in different ways.
There are opportunities to let go of the control and let it play out and everyone's goingto be fine.
(19:29):
Everyone's going to be safe.
I think we've just pushed so far away from that into this other direction where it's justan easy button now.
Yeah, I don't need to tell either of you, you know that.
It's just, hard to watch young people who don't have kind of that fully formed sense ofidentity and maybe don't have the language to honestly even, and this is where we can go
(19:52):
maybe into the therapy piece, but like they don't even have the language to articulate alot of times what they're consciously feeling and what that looks like.
And they're kind of relying on an LLM who's going to probably either over-validate or sendthem into, you know,
different direction that really isn't what they needed in that moment.
(20:13):
Yeah, it's almost like they need a default profile in their prompt engineering that takesinto account the Dunning-Kruger effect for kids who think they actually know something
because the AI bot spits back something and says, you're right, it's validating.
And it's really hard to attain emotional maturity when you're dealing with something thatjust keeps going, yeah, you're doing great.
(20:38):
Something needs to check you in the process because when something in the real world
does and you don't know how to handle those pieces, you're going to break down.
You know, I, I used to coach softball and I, I watch it with some of my players.
Like if you came at them and criticize them in a certain way, they, they really couldn'ttake it.
And it was a lot different when I was a kid.
(20:59):
And I just, this seems to be accelerating and becoming more of a divergent path andbecoming more and more difficult to have regular emotional conversations with kids.
And
for good reason.
it's not like there's not a real reason why these things are hard.
But yeah, I, sorry just to comment on that.
(21:21):
You
that's been my experience with working with AI is it's going to validate you and validateyou and validate you.
And you're perfect.
You're the perfect person to do this thing.
And it's like, well, I don't know about that.
I have a lot of gap.
But you can see kids taking that in such a way.
(21:41):
And that's not always good for their growth either, because they need to be given thespace to take healthy risks.
Yeah, I just think the isolation and the loneliness piece of it is really the biggestchallenge.
think that's an epidemic and I think ah we need relational friction and a lot of oursystems are dependent on human beings ultimately.
And so we're just cutting that out of the process.
(22:05):
So I mean, what I'm hearing from this conversation is really kind of opposing uh goalsreally.
mean, on one hand, we need to be teaching these kids how to really integrate AI and how toreally understand and use it as the tool that it is for any sort of future role in an
economic system, whatever is left of our current one.
(22:27):
But also we need to have them use it less and interact more in real life with real peopleand real challenges.
and maybe the answer here is,
I don't know, but like, is there any agency at the education level from the teacher, fromthe district, whatever agency to build that?
mean, can a teacher experiment and find ways to combine the two or try new things?
(22:53):
Or are they all really locked into a curriculum that's enforced so that they pass the testand the school continues to get the funding that it needs?
Yeah, I think that's a great question.
I probably can't speak for every environment, but I think leadership dictates a lot ofthat.
There are some, I think, environments where teachers are given some agency to go exploreand try things.
(23:16):
And I think those are probably the environments where you'd see the most kind ofinnovative and unique solutions, of course.
I think a lot of the, again, lot of the dialogue I've heard around it is just
in the environments that I've been in is just this concern of losing this cognitiveoffloading and this critical thinking.
(23:40):
And that's not a concern for me because I don't think, I think the other things that areplaying on the system that we just were talking about are much bigger barriers to what
happens going forward than this cognitive offloading piece.
And I think
that has existed, like I said previously, for quite some time.
(24:02):
It's just very, very visible now to everybody that's watching.
So I think any young person that has some, that lights up about something that they'reinterested in, that gives them energy, engages them, that they feel some confidence around
is going, and they feel like they have some autonomy to follow that and pursue that.
(24:23):
That is so innate.
That's how we derive purpose and meaning in life.
I don't think that goes away.
But I think what is happening is we are not leaning into those things and we're notcultivating environment for those things to take place.
And so I guess in a perfect world in an environmental system, you'd have, like you weresaying, Jeremy, you'd have a barbell strategy here where you have a lot of time without
(24:53):
AI, where you have some opportunity to take some
some risks in the real world, try some stuff, get some feedback, work with some differentpeople, mix up the ideas in such a way and the adult becomes more of a mentor and a guide
than the holder of all the information because that's where learning comes from is thatplace of curiosity and there's neuroscience around that too.
(25:17):
But then there's some piece of it as well where it's like we need to have some fluencyaround how to use the tool and we need to be able to sit down and go like, hey, this is a
great
place to use case for it.
We think you should use it as a writing partner.
You should use it as a sparring partner to come up with different ideas and brainstorm andthink about how you can do X, Y, or Z.
(25:40):
But you don't want it to take the place of all these important human relationships thatare really, again, going back to just the most deeply humane things about us is our
connection with others.
I just think there's not a ton of thought about that.
(26:01):
It's such a deep place to go to, I think.
And in education, I think we're still stuck in standards and, well, kids have to go tocollege and kids have to do this and kids have to do that.
And oftentimes if you ask the kids, they have a completely different, and I did a projectlike this in a school where the kids' perceptions of
(26:24):
what was happening in the environment and the adult's perceptions were on polar oppositeends.
And I think oftentimes we don't ask the kids what their perspective is.
And I think that ends up inadvertently creating these types of dynamics.
(26:44):
Is there a positive to all the AI influence coming in in education?
I let me relay a quick story.
So I grew up uh military brat, hopped around a lot.
um Had a lot of teachers, lot of different schools.
And I get to fifth grade and my teacher just goes, you're going to be bored with thecurriculum.
Here's the student version or the teacher book and go for it.
(27:08):
See how far you can get.
So I did that for fifth and sixth grade.
And by the time I had done it, I had finished the
sixth grade, I'd finish the seventh and eighth grade curriculum.
If I had an AI, this would have been a great tool for that to kind of put those piecesforward.
And it's one of those pieces where I think people can thrive in certain environments andcertain conditions, but education needs to be sent towards the masses.
And while you need to look at the different fringe levels of those pieces, I think thatthere's, to me, it seems like there's value in AI being used in those kinds of ways to
(27:40):
answer your.
answer questions about curiosity that you're mentioning.
like Google was great for that.
didn't, we didn't know the answer.
Everyone knows the answer.
Now that you can Google those things, you can settle an argument right then and there.
But then the question kind of becomes with this instant access to information, how much amI going to hold onto it?
How much do I actually remember?
I don't need to remember phone numbers anymore.
I don't need to remember addresses anymore.
I don't need to know how to have directions anymore.
(28:02):
I just need to know how to operate my GPS and lock my phone.
Those things I think are great and a value add, but yeah, there's a declining value on theother pieces.
And if society collapses and falls apart, sure, I don't have telephones anyways, whatever.
But kind of my point being that it seems like there's actually good things in here thatcould be pulled out of it.
(28:24):
And that the way that we get those into the system needs to be integrated with a morecomprehensive education program that actually takes into account.
the emotions of kids, but also the interests of kids because not every kid gives a shitabout going to college.
They don't and they shouldn't, to be honest.
mean, my degree in social sciences does nothing for me in my current field of occupation,but I have it.
(28:51):
And my wife's a real estate agent and heard this season English slip major.
Like these things don't really cross over.
And yes, I think there's value in going through these process and learning.
how to operate in the system, going to college and getting that learning experience.
But ultimately speaking, I don't think we're teaching kids enough of how to use theexisting tools of society.
(29:14):
And now we have these whole new sets of tools coming in and we're not really doing a goodjob of showing them how to use it and how to regulate it.
And we're trying to push it into everything right now.
And it's scary.
I mean, Microsoft just came up with this whole new thing for all the Office line productswhere you are forced to use copilot.
Like you are forced to use their AI system and they are charging you more for this, up toyour subscription cost to force you to eat more AI, which is bad for the environment and
(29:42):
terrible for this and that.
And really takes away from the individual creative process and force you to think on yourown.
If the tools themselves are being
shifted in that direction and moved in that direction and you're not going to getcorporations to really change those those aspects.
Do we just need to be more adaptive in the way that we address these things, especiallywith children who are probably our most vulnerable members of society?
(30:10):
What's what's the trick?
mean, I don't think I don't know if anyone's figured this out yet, but you know, wheredoes that balancing line come between utilizing these cool new technology pieces to try to
derive some value out of it versus you've just
taking this new technology piece that you're bludgeoning children over the head with andtrying to turn this into another tool that they're only going to be able to use this much
(30:30):
of and ultimately it winds up being a negative for
Yeah, I don't know if I know the answer, but I laughed when you said co-pilot because Inoticed that logging into my work email the other day and I couldn't figure out how to get
to my email because co-pilot made it very challenging.
I think the best kind of metaphor for this is what's been going on with SEL for the last10 to 12 years and
(31:04):
The short version of that is instead of going down to the root and figuring out some ofwhat I was talking about before, I think, and the environment itself and the ways that can
change, there became this movement that, kids just need more of these SEL skills, which I,I'm a mental health professional.
(31:25):
I agree they need those skills.
I just don't think that calling them out and siloing them as a separate thing.
is the effective way to do that.
And so what happened is that's how it was presented.
It got siloed.
And then schools said, hey, we need to do SEL.
Every teacher is going to have a advisory.
They're going to teach these SEL uh lessons and provide these skills.
(31:52):
And the teachers were like, no, we don't want to do this.
We're not qualified.
We don't know how to talk about self-awareness and social awareness.
responsible decision making and all that stuff.
it didn't get, it wasn't equitable and how it was rolled out.
And so then it becomes, well, this ed tech company swoops in and they have the solutionand they go, we can do it for you.
(32:16):
And the school feels some responsibility to say that they're doing it well.
And so worse than the teachers trying to struggle through it and acknowledge that like,hey, this is messy.
I don't know exactly what I'm doing.
And that's part of this whole thing.
That's what SEL is anyways.
We've got EdTech on the scene and they're like, yeah, just press this button and it'llgive you everything that you need.
(32:37):
really kids, especially middle school and high school kids, they see right through thatstuff.
They're not participating.
They just want authenticity.
And that goes, I mean, that goes back to where I started with this is like the validationthat they're looking for is because they're not, they don't feel those authentic
connections.
There's a lack of trust in the system in terms of like meeting me as a human being.
(33:02):
And so that's where I think the biggest concern is, I guess to bring this back full circleis like the biggest concern is that the power and agency that we have to just be human
beings in these systems, we have made ourselves more robotic and less human.
And so the robot actually seems like the better option because it's going to show up withvalidation first instead of just leaning into like
(33:31):
It's just the over optimization and the hustle and the busyness.
And even in schools, it's not that big of a deal.
And everyone is burnt out.
The teachers, the kids, the administrators, we don't have to be in that spot, but we are.
And it's the name of the thing.
It's artificial.
Like, we're not becoming more dynamic and more organic.
(33:54):
We're becoming more artificial.
the tool's not adjusting to us as much as we're adjusting to it.
And this seems a lot like social physics, just like regular meat space physics, whereevery action has an equal and opposite reaction, and there's only so much emotional space
kids can deal with.
(34:14):
And how do you?
Yeah, that search for authenticity is huge.
And also the fear of being authentic is huge.
Like you might actually have terrible thoughts.
And if you express them and the AI sees it and listens to it, it might amplify thosepieces or you might be shunned for it.
(34:35):
mean, it feels like there's a real lack um of space for organic growth and control becausewe've just
embrace what we think is so much better, which is artificial, which by the way, it's veryinefficient.
It's not great.
It's not cost effective.
There's all kinds of problems with it, but it makes things happen really, really fast.
(34:57):
For some reason, we're more concerned with fast results as opposed to quality accuracy.
And it really feels like that's being pushed into education and on teachers in an unfairway.
100%.
Yeah, I think if the teacher was given some agency to, I'll talk about a little bit of aproject I did and I know an eighth grade teacher in Colorado that's doing this work as
(35:27):
well, he's basically doing whatever he wants and then tying back what, and whatever hewants is giving his agency and having them dictate within some red line.
boundaries like where the learning goes and then the kids drive it and the kids have topresent and the kids have to write and the kids have to so they have to do all these
(35:52):
things.
There's plenty of friction there but he's letting the kids drive within what I'm callingthese red line boundaries which is don't walk out into traffic.
Don't you know go to this place on the internet and if you don't do those things we're allgood here and I want you guys to drive it and then I'm going to be able to tie these back
and so I kind of did a similar
deal with some kids that I started a peer counseling program five years ago and I couldn'tcontrol, going back to control, I couldn't control, I spent a semester training them,
(36:22):
giving them credit and I couldn't control the flow of the kids that were coming in to seektheir support.
So at one point I said, I want you guys to do a project.
It wasn't for a grade, I just said, I'm giving you credit, it's pass fail, but you'regonna do this project.
what the project looks like is 100 % up to you.
I'm going to give you some data, school level data.
(36:45):
want you to look at it.
We'll gallery walk it.
And I want you to ask some questions and we'll go from there.
And the first four weeks were painful because they just wanted me to tell them what to do.
And they wanted to, it's just that that's how they were trained.
And we trained the curiosity out of them.
So fast forward, they, they run with it.
(37:06):
They, it was a great experience.
They publish.
This paper they're presenting to the adults.
They're the thought leaders We've shared power now.
I've opened doors for them to to get in front of adults and and the I think the reactionfrom adults when they see kids who have taken some agency Have gone through a thoughtful
(37:27):
process have collected some data have taken all these meaningful steps It's like standingovation and yet we don't give them any space and then we go back to business as usual
and we don't give them any space to actually do that.
And so that was kind of where my side project impact league came from.
It's just this idea that when you give kids some space to lean into their agency,something that they're super motivated to kind of run with, and you give them a little bit
(37:58):
of light mentorship and guidance, like they're gonna do amazing things.
We just need to get out of their way, create those red lines.
And that's how they learn.
I mean, the level of confidence, capacity, ah the change in 12 to 18 months, way more thanyou see in a typical classroom.
(38:19):
10x.
Like if we can bring more of that into the classroom, give the teachers the agency to dothis sort of thing or build new curriculum that does this.
think that that is one at least answer to this big puzzle.
ah
treat them like IEPs, right?
Individual education programs that can be tailored to the individual that can run throughthis kind of process to give them that kind of feedback.
(38:40):
But you have to make space, like Scott was saying, for the emotional connection andinteractions.
Where I think if you use these things as derivative tools that go through and look atthese KPI indicators and then also added in the emotional context piece inside of this,
you can actually go through and have those kinds of interactions.
I think you'd be much better off.
And I think we have to stop measuring things as ABCs, Ds, or ABCs, Ds and Fs, becausethat's not what the criteria for output is anymore.
(39:06):
I mean, if you look at the way that these systems actually work, they're 51 % positive.
That 1 % is the effective value that they actually make and grow and generate in thoseLLMs.
businesses, most successful corporations aren't 100 % successful.
They're 51 % successful or better.
Yeah.
(39:26):
That 1 % can derive a lot.
I think that needs to be put into education.
And I think other countries have done this.
Scott, it sounds like your program is definitely leaving the forefront on this.
Where can folks learn more about it and follow your work?
Yeah, theimpactleague.org.
We provide micro grants to youth.
We give them some light mentorship.
The goal is to amplify impact and really support the next generation of change makers indoing the type of work that I know they can do.
(39:53):
They have incredible potential.
We just need to give them some space to do that.
So that's where you can find more information about the program.
We'll have the links in the show notes.
Anything you want to add here that we didn't get to?
No, I think the only thing would be to look at the people you love and stay connected tothem.
(40:14):
And I've been trying myself to go back to friendships and folks have gotten disconnectedfrom it, just to reconnect.
And I think that's just going to be the most important currency going forward is thathuman connection.
Could not agree more.
Thank you so much, Scott.
This has been great.
I really appreciate your time.
Thank you, Scott.
Likewise.
(40:38):
All right, our thanks Scott.
Boy, that's really loud.
All right, our thanks to Scott Merkel.
Great conversation there.
found it validating in a lot of ways as a parent.
There's so many things where he was talking about like the red lines and just sort ofgiving kids the freedom to experiment and grow within those boundaries.
know, essentially, within those boundaries, essentially, you know, don't run into traffic,but you know, go play in the yard.
(41:04):
These are the kinds of things I do as a parent is try to give my kids the freedom toexplore, to go out and be kids.
It's a novel concept seemingly now, but I mean, when I was a kid, that's how we grew up.
We came home from school, said hi to our parents if they were home.
More often they weren't.
And we were just out in the neighborhood until dinner.
And if you weren't home by dinner, parents might've been concerned, but for the most part,kids were allowed to be kids and explore.
(41:28):
And there's so much emphasis on testing and getting it right and...
being on the optimized path to make the most of every opportunity.
And I get it, like there's a lot of value in that.
There's a lot of missed opportunity I think that does come along if you don't work towardssomething.
But if you're allowed to explore what that something is for yourself, I think it's justgonna lead to a much more fulfilling existence for that kid that you're trying to raise in
(41:53):
the world.
Lots of great information there.
Lots of information from Scott that you can find at his website, theimpactleague.org thatis linked at our website, brobots.me.
And that's where we'll be back in just a few days with another episode.
Thanks so much for listening.
Are your kids making deeper, more meaningful connections to AI chatbots than they are totheir friends, family, and even you?
As more kids choose artificial validation over real human connection, it's creating ageneration that can't handle authentic relationships or genuine feedback.
While schools push AI integration, we're accidentally teaching kids that algorithmsunderstand them better than their parents, teachers, or friends do.
(00:22):
So today we're gonna talk about how you can help your kids use AI as a tool without losingtheir humanity.
We'll talk about the warning signs of AI dependency, understand why current educationsystems are failing our kids emotionally, and get practical strategies for building real
world resilience in an artificial world.
So hang out as we try to discover how to raise emotionally intelligent humans in an AIdominated world.
(00:50):
Hi there, is BroBots, the podcast formerly known as The Fit Mess, and along with Jason,I'm Jeremy, and this is a podcast for men who want to use AI safely to manage their mental
health.
And our conversation today is really a continuation of one that we've had on this show forsome time now, as we've been talking more and more about how so many people are using AI
to manage their mental health, whether they don't have access to human mental healththrough therapy or counseling, things like that.
(01:16):
People are turning to AI because they are finding a lot of validation.
They're finding a lot of advice, good and bad.
ah And it's creating a lot of opportunity for people to get help that they need.
But it's also creating a lot of danger for people that don't really know how to navigateit well.
And so as I mentioned, this is sort of a continuation.
uh I posted something on LinkedIn recently.
I'll just read it to you.
(01:36):
said, the danger of AI therapy isn't that it doesn't work.
The danger is that it works too well.
Perfect responses, instant availability, zero judgment.
relationships can't compete with that level of artificial perfection.
We're accidentally making human connection feel inadequate.
this one got an interesting response from a guy named Scott Merkel.
He responded saying,
Jeremy, you nailed it.
(01:56):
While everyone is arguing about cognitive offloading and brain rot in education, which istotally off base in my opinion, this is the real issue, outsourcing all types of
relationships to AI, girlfriends, therapy mentors.
In a therapeutic context, one of the most nuanced things a mental health professional cando
is use a belief in the other person's potential to challenge them and push them beyondtheir comfort zone.
You would need an MA in counseling psychology to even know how to prompt for that level ofyoung people and disenfranchised folks want validation.
(02:23):
Our systems and institutions have offered them that.
and or they became jaded about their ability to navigate these systems.
Our education system is a great example of failing so many kids and not validating theirstrengths.
The trust has eroded and they shift to AI.
This is the problem we should all be paying attention to.
Naturally, I looked up Scott's background to try to understand who he is and a little bitof his context.
(02:45):
And what I found was very compelling.
He's one of the people with boots on the ground to try to help solve this problem as weexplore more about how to use AI in our real lives, but also try to hang on to our
humanity and what it is that makes us different from machines.
So we invited Scott to join us here on the show and have a conversation about what he'sseeing working directly with young people and where the school systems are letting them
(03:06):
down and where AI is starting to fill in the gaps for better and for worse.
so we'll talk more with Scott about that right after this.
Our guest today is Scott Merkel.
He's a school counselor and founder of the Impact League.
It's a program that helps young people take awesome ideas and make them happen in the realworld to help others.
He's also interested in how things like AI are changing school systems and how we thinkabout ourselves.
(03:27):
And Scott, you and I connected on LinkedIn a few days ago, really in response to somethingI posted, which was in response to something we talked about on our show.
And it's how we're turning so much of our AI therapy over to AI.
Jason, you were sharing recently that mental health is like the number one thing peopleare using AI
for these days.
And you had some concerns about how people are doing more and more of our outsourcing ofnot only therapy, but our actual human relationships.
(03:53):
What are the concerns that you have about this?
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the world that I've been occupying for the last coupleyears in education, a lot of the conversation has been about the actual production of work
and cognitive offloading.
there was a recent study done by some folks at MIT that gained a lot of traction.
(04:16):
I'm sure you've seen it.
And there's just so much conversation about the function of school and learning and thecognitive offloading of that.
For me, that's a non-issue.
I think there's plenty of evidence out there that suggests that humans have ah someintrinsic motivations, some natural curiosity, some natural inclination to learn.
(04:37):
I don't think that stuff goes away with AI, but the bigger concern I think, and we've seenthis play out for young people, especially over the last decade, is just the loneliness
epidemic, ah continued isolation, continued push away from
trusted connections and relationships into more siloed spaces where they are ultimatelyinteracting with algorithms ah that change their thinking and really take away their
(05:10):
humanity in a lot of ways.
And so I think ah it's not even a conversation education right now, which I think it needsto be.
And I think that's part of the AI framework and policy stuff that gets talked about inschools.
in a lot of places is still not codified and doesn't exist in the way that, like, how dowe teach young people that there are some great use cases for AI and this is what that
(05:34):
looks like and how do we develop some fluency around that and we don't want to outsourceour humanity.
Like, that's the quickest way for us to, you know, a few generations from now to not bearound anymore.
m
Yeah, I mean, it's, kind of crazy that you mentioned the idea that kids are feelingisolated and alone and we're supposed to be more connected than ever.
(05:57):
But do you feel that the personification of the individual and social media comes down tokind of our own mental cognitive map trying to go through and remap the value of self back
to whatever it is this presentation layer is that we're, calling social media.
and trying to create this interaction where human beings just feel disconnected fromthemselves because they look at this thing as supposed to be reflection of who they are.
(06:23):
And they kind of know it's not.
And they're trying to live up to their own ideals that they're putting on themselves thatare a mirrored reflection of what their social group says they should be.
But I guess my question to you is, since you're working in this space, what's the judo toget out of it for kids?
(06:44):
Because...
I mean, I've got two daughters.
They're 20 and 24.
They came up right around the time of social media.
And no one like Jeremy because his kids are quite a bit younger and they're more steepedin it than my kids are.
And I don't see a simple way to fix this problem from a continued use perspective.
(07:08):
know China's gone through and they basically limit kids to like two hours a day of socialmedia.
um
they've had some success with, but man, I don't know, like two hours of doom scroll, it'sprobably enough to taint things pretty well.
So don't know what the right amount is, what the right portion is, and I guess I'm hopingyou have some insight.
(07:32):
Yeah, I mean, I think you're a technologist, Jason, so you'd know more about the ins andouts of the manipulation and the traps that are created psychologically for even somebody
like myself who understands psychologically what's happening physiologically and ournervous systems are not uh in position to be able to navigate this world.
(07:53):
And of course, kids don't know any of that.
They're just trying to make a sense of their identity, especially as they come intoadolescence.
But I think
where I'm trying to work in particular is uh social media is obviously a huge problem, butthink one of the, and AI will be a continuation of that I think in terms of what kids have
(08:16):
struggled with in the last decade plus is this idea that they don't see themselves in thesystem.
They don't have any voice.
They don't have any agency.
They don't have any
sense of co-creation or sharing a power and in that they lose some validation for who theyare and what their identity is.
(08:38):
There's a lot of, of course, over optimization that's happened in education, likeoptimizing for all these things.
And so in a lot of ways we're treating kids less human to optimize for these things.
We're not validating them and they don't have any agency in the process.
And so it feels very transactional.
And so they
(08:58):
look for a place where they can feel some validation and comfort.
And I think the downstream implications of that are we've just created a lot of learnedhelplessness, we've created some fragility.
ah And these are things that I think we have to look back at ourselves as adults in thesystem and go, like, what are we doing?
We have created this mousetrap that really stunts curiosity, stunts the innate desire forindividuals to learn.
(09:26):
ah
essentially being counting.
so going back to the MIT study, the idea that AI has ruined education is a farce to mebecause it's, Jason, to your point, it's a mirror back on the system.
If the system was operating effectively, wouldn't be...
(09:50):
Intrinsic motivation is uh predicated on self-determination theory.
It's autonomy, it's competence, it's relatedness.
If those things are happening in a meaningful way in the environment, like there's notthis desire to take the path of least resistance.
So that path has always been there.
I used to be calling, you know, I had a friend named Alex Engel or something.
(10:10):
He was my AI, right?
And he had all the answers to the homework.
ah So the path of least resistance looks different now, but it doesn't change themechanics of like what's happening in the system itself.
So to me, that is...
directly where we need to be working as adults to go like we need to give up tent that wecreated around what's actually important and what work we're doing and we need to bring
(10:38):
kids into the process and give them some agency and treat them like human beings.
And I think that really goes a long way.
I'm oversimplifying it.
It might seem a little esoteric, but I've done some work in that space and I've just seenthe
the results from kids with no agency just like, okay, tell me what to do.
They're just so trained into that, into that mode to then have any agency to go create anddesign something that is important to them and gives them some sense that they have some
(11:08):
agency and ownership over what can happen in the
give me an example or two of the kids you've worked with that are struggling with this,that don't have that agency, that are sort of like, what does that look like in your
office, on the campus?
who is that kid walking down the hall?
What is he dealing with on a day-to-day basis?
And what does that look like?
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the best exercises that we can do as adults is, it's been along time since we all sat in a classroom.
(11:34):
And so one of the things that I've tried to do every year is be a student for a day.
And that's human design, that's empathy, right?
And that's something that AI can't do.
AI can, you know, ah simulate trying to be empathetic and talking about what thatexperience is like, but it can't live it as close as you might.
uh
(11:55):
as a human being in kind of a surrogate way.
So I think for kids, it's we've created, it's twofold.
So one, we've created this system by which it's like uh becomes zero sum competitive toget to this place, which is higher education in a lot of ways.
And I've worked in public schools for a long time as well.
(12:16):
And there's a lot of that there.
It's like, I have to take all the AP classes.
I have to check all the boxes.
I have to do all the things.
And it becomes just this exercise of stuffing the quote unquote resume.
And what that looks like in practice for a kid is they wake up at, I don't know, 6.30, 6a.m.
and they get to school.
(12:37):
An example of a kid I followed, we went to uh their one elective for the day, which islike graphic design.
And that was fun.
And then we went to honors chemistry, took a test for 90 minutes, went to AP WorldHistory.
took another test for 90 minutes and then went to pre-calc.
And by the time we're in pre-calc, you know, I'm struggling to keep my eyes open.
(13:01):
I'm doodling.
There's been no opportunity to move.
There's been no opportunity to discuss.
There's been no opportunity to uh get any type of feedback other than to sit there, rotememorization and dump information or listen to a lecture.
Graphic design aside a little bit, but those same kids then go to extracurriculars.
(13:22):
They go
to music sports, theater, scouts, whatever it may be, they're not getting home ahsometimes until eight, nine in the evening.
They haven't eaten.
We've just taken these things that sound crazy.
That's a crazy day for any one of us in terms of a work day.
And to do that day in and day out ah in search of this thing that we've all determined isimportant, I think is...
(13:48):
ah
it's really challenging.
So when they come in, think they just feel they're just trying to survive.
There's no sense of like, don't have, they don't even have the space to sit and likeunpack whether they should be doing this.
Like they feel like they have to.
(14:08):
And that's just the messaging that they've been given from the jump.
So do you feel like administrators and folks that make curriculum are focusing on thewrong KPIs?
So I mean, they're data-driven and they're trying to elicit certain results, but they'renot taking into account the physiological, the psychological, and the emotional toll that
(14:29):
driving and pushing this direction actually take on individuals.
And as far as I can tell, we're trying to use AI to elicit a certain response out of kidsin terms of putting them through a certain curriculum criteria and trying to get them
strive them towards a certain output or a certain outcome.
But we don't do anything to measure mental health of kids.
(14:50):
Like, we really just don't.
Like, there's not a mental health scorecard.
There's not a class on how to deal with shit in schools.
And there should be.
I mean, we don't teach kids how to balance a checkbook or how to pay rent or any of thosepieces, but we'll push them through like trig and geometry, like not really practical
skills.
And we'll do story problems that, you know,
(15:11):
This is how fast a how long a train takes to go from somewhere in Paris to somewhere inLondon.
And there's a schedule for that.
Like I don't really need, that's not really a skill I need, but I need some more practicalskills and we're like bypassing these practical skills and putting them in these
situations even as while they're in school, when they're leaving school, where they're notprepared, but we're also putting them at a disadvantage while they're in school to push
(15:34):
them towards KPIs that, you know, honestly are probably not really going to be relevantanymore because
With the advent of AI, a lot of these jobs that we're talking about pushing them towardsthat require a college degree are just not gonna be there in 10 years.
Probably even sooner than that.
schools are titanic in terms of their curriculum and how they actually can transform andmove things.
(15:58):
It takes a long time and most of time they can't slow down before they hit an iceberg.
It sounds very much so like we're heading towards an iceberg and like there's a lot ofpeople waving their hands in the air saying,
we're gonna run into this thing as AI becomes our prevalent in the school and in schoolsthemselves.
Are we just kind of hosed?
I guess that's my real question to you.
(16:21):
don't think we're hosed, but I think there's a lot of step back and reflection that needsto happen on the part of the educators.
There's identity there, and I don't want to treat that as if that is easy to think throughand reflect upon.
But it's a change in identity from being the holder of all the knowledge and theinformation and the content to a co-creator because to your point, Jason, we don't know
(16:48):
where
It's going to be in 10 years.
And I think we have to relinquish some of that control.
It's a compliance and control model right now.
And what it has ended up doing downstream or, you know, the misaligned incentives or theKPIs like you were talking about has just created this over pathologizing of childhood.
(17:09):
And, you know, I think John Heist probably talked about that a little bit in both hisbooks, Coddling of the American Mind and The Anxious Generation, but
you're taking kids that are generally fine and putting them in a place where they are nolonger fine because be it the expectations, the environment, the ask of them, the lack of
(17:30):
validation, the lack of true human connection in a place that's supposed to be anopportunity to learn and develop a lot of the skills that you mentioned, it's just not
what's happening.
I think that's kind of the
we're going towards a place where, and we're already there, right?
(17:53):
I think about young men in particular who are less likely to form, ah especially ifthey're isolated through adolescence, like they're less likely to form these tight
relationships in the same way.
And I also have daughters, but in the same way that girls might, females are much better,I think, at maintaining a network and staying in touch with them.
(18:13):
But young males, you could be a young male
orders your coffee online, picks it up, you don't have to talk to anybody, you get yourAmazon delivery, you get your groceries delivered, you interact with an AI girlfriend or
AI therapist, and you play games all day, and you might gamble online.
(18:36):
You don't have to talk to a human.
And you can still, we've made it.
just described my dream world.
That was amazing.
But it's dangerous.
Yeah, you're right, it's dangerous.
it's completely frictionless and you need friction for growth.
And so I think we've removed, we've created all these points of quote unquote friction inour systems, but they're the wrong points of friction where the right points of friction
(19:05):
would be how do we create kids that are not fragile but anti-fragile?
And the only way to do that is in
like true relational environments where there is the messy middle.
There are these opportunities for feedback in different ways.
There are opportunities to let go of the control and let it play out and everyone's goingto be fine.
(19:29):
Everyone's going to be safe.
I think we've just pushed so far away from that into this other direction where it's justan easy button now.
Yeah, I don't need to tell either of you, you know that.
It's just, hard to watch young people who don't have kind of that fully formed sense ofidentity and maybe don't have the language to honestly even, and this is where we can go
(19:52):
maybe into the therapy piece, but like they don't even have the language to articulate alot of times what they're consciously feeling and what that looks like.
And they're kind of relying on an LLM who's going to probably either over-validate or sendthem into, you know,
different direction that really isn't what they needed in that moment.
(20:13):
Yeah, it's almost like they need a default profile in their prompt engineering that takesinto account the Dunning-Kruger effect for kids who think they actually know something
because the AI bot spits back something and says, you're right, it's validating.
And it's really hard to attain emotional maturity when you're dealing with something thatjust keeps going, yeah, you're doing great.
(20:38):
Something needs to check you in the process because when something in the real world
does and you don't know how to handle those pieces, you're going to break down.
You know, I, I used to coach softball and I, I watch it with some of my players.
Like if you came at them and criticize them in a certain way, they, they really couldn'ttake it.
And it was a lot different when I was a kid.
(20:59):
And I just, this seems to be accelerating and becoming more of a divergent path andbecoming more and more difficult to have regular emotional conversations with kids.
And
for good reason.
it's not like there's not a real reason why these things are hard.
But yeah, I, sorry just to comment on that.
(21:21):
You
that's been my experience with working with AI is it's going to validate you and validateyou and validate you.
And you're perfect.
You're the perfect person to do this thing.
And it's like, well, I don't know about that.
I have a lot of gap.
But you can see kids taking that in such a way.
(21:41):
And that's not always good for their growth either, because they need to be given thespace to take healthy risks.
Yeah, I just think the isolation and the loneliness piece of it is really the biggestchallenge.
think that's an epidemic and I think ah we need relational friction and a lot of oursystems are dependent on human beings ultimately.
And so we're just cutting that out of the process.
(22:05):
So I mean, what I'm hearing from this conversation is really kind of opposing uh goalsreally.
mean, on one hand, we need to be teaching these kids how to really integrate AI and how toreally understand and use it as the tool that it is for any sort of future role in an
economic system, whatever is left of our current one.
(22:27):
But also we need to have them use it less and interact more in real life with real peopleand real challenges.
and maybe the answer here is,
I don't know, but like, is there any agency at the education level from the teacher, fromthe district, whatever agency to build that?
mean, can a teacher experiment and find ways to combine the two or try new things?
(22:53):
Or are they all really locked into a curriculum that's enforced so that they pass the testand the school continues to get the funding that it needs?
Yeah, I think that's a great question.
I probably can't speak for every environment, but I think leadership dictates a lot ofthat.
There are some, I think, environments where teachers are given some agency to go exploreand try things.
(23:16):
And I think those are probably the environments where you'd see the most kind ofinnovative and unique solutions, of course.
I think a lot of the, again, lot of the dialogue I've heard around it is just
in the environments that I've been in is just this concern of losing this cognitiveoffloading and this critical thinking.
(23:40):
And that's not a concern for me because I don't think, I think the other things that areplaying on the system that we just were talking about are much bigger barriers to what
happens going forward than this cognitive offloading piece.
And I think
that has existed, like I said previously, for quite some time.
(24:02):
It's just very, very visible now to everybody that's watching.
So I think any young person that has some, that lights up about something that they'reinterested in, that gives them energy, engages them, that they feel some confidence around
is going, and they feel like they have some autonomy to follow that and pursue that.
(24:23):
That is so innate.
That's how we derive purpose and meaning in life.
I don't think that goes away.
But I think what is happening is we are not leaning into those things and we're notcultivating environment for those things to take place.
And so I guess in a perfect world in an environmental system, you'd have, like you weresaying, Jeremy, you'd have a barbell strategy here where you have a lot of time without
(24:53):
AI, where you have some opportunity to take some
some risks in the real world, try some stuff, get some feedback, work with some differentpeople, mix up the ideas in such a way and the adult becomes more of a mentor and a guide
than the holder of all the information because that's where learning comes from is thatplace of curiosity and there's neuroscience around that too.
(25:17):
But then there's some piece of it as well where it's like we need to have some fluencyaround how to use the tool and we need to be able to sit down and go like, hey, this is a
great
place to use case for it.
We think you should use it as a writing partner.
You should use it as a sparring partner to come up with different ideas and brainstorm andthink about how you can do X, Y, or Z.
(25:40):
But you don't want it to take the place of all these important human relationships thatare really, again, going back to just the most deeply humane things about us is our
connection with others.
I just think there's not a ton of thought about that.
(26:01):
It's such a deep place to go to, I think.
And in education, I think we're still stuck in standards and, well, kids have to go tocollege and kids have to do this and kids have to do that.
And oftentimes if you ask the kids, they have a completely different, and I did a projectlike this in a school where the kids' perceptions of
(26:24):
what was happening in the environment and the adult's perceptions were on polar oppositeends.
And I think oftentimes we don't ask the kids what their perspective is.
And I think that ends up inadvertently creating these types of dynamics.
(26:44):
Is there a positive to all the AI influence coming in in education?
I let me relay a quick story.
So I grew up uh military brat, hopped around a lot.
um Had a lot of teachers, lot of different schools.
And I get to fifth grade and my teacher just goes, you're going to be bored with thecurriculum.
Here's the student version or the teacher book and go for it.
(27:08):
See how far you can get.
So I did that for fifth and sixth grade.
And by the time I had done it, I had finished the
sixth grade, I'd finish the seventh and eighth grade curriculum.
If I had an AI, this would have been a great tool for that to kind of put those piecesforward.
And it's one of those pieces where I think people can thrive in certain environments andcertain conditions, but education needs to be sent towards the masses.
And while you need to look at the different fringe levels of those pieces, I think thatthere's, to me, it seems like there's value in AI being used in those kinds of ways to
(27:40):
answer your.
answer questions about curiosity that you're mentioning.
like Google was great for that.
didn't, we didn't know the answer.
Everyone knows the answer.
Now that you can Google those things, you can settle an argument right then and there.
But then the question kind of becomes with this instant access to information, how much amI going to hold onto it?
How much do I actually remember?
I don't need to remember phone numbers anymore.
I don't need to remember addresses anymore.
I don't need to know how to have directions anymore.
(28:02):
I just need to know how to operate my GPS and lock my phone.
Those things I think are great and a value add, but yeah, there's a declining value on theother pieces.
And if society collapses and falls apart, sure, I don't have telephones anyways, whatever.
But kind of my point being that it seems like there's actually good things in here thatcould be pulled out of it.
(28:24):
And that the way that we get those into the system needs to be integrated with a morecomprehensive education program that actually takes into account.
the emotions of kids, but also the interests of kids because not every kid gives a shitabout going to college.
They don't and they shouldn't, to be honest.
mean, my degree in social sciences does nothing for me in my current field of occupation,but I have it.
(28:51):
And my wife's a real estate agent and heard this season English slip major.
Like these things don't really cross over.
And yes, I think there's value in going through these process and learning.
how to operate in the system, going to college and getting that learning experience.
But ultimately speaking, I don't think we're teaching kids enough of how to use theexisting tools of society.
(29:14):
And now we have these whole new sets of tools coming in and we're not really doing a goodjob of showing them how to use it and how to regulate it.
And we're trying to push it into everything right now.
And it's scary.
I mean, Microsoft just came up with this whole new thing for all the Office line productswhere you are forced to use copilot.
Like you are forced to use their AI system and they are charging you more for this, up toyour subscription cost to force you to eat more AI, which is bad for the environment and
(29:42):
terrible for this and that.
And really takes away from the individual creative process and force you to think on yourown.
If the tools themselves are being
shifted in that direction and moved in that direction and you're not going to getcorporations to really change those those aspects.
Do we just need to be more adaptive in the way that we address these things, especiallywith children who are probably our most vulnerable members of society?
(30:10):
What's what's the trick?
mean, I don't think I don't know if anyone's figured this out yet, but you know, wheredoes that balancing line come between utilizing these cool new technology pieces to try to
derive some value out of it versus you've just
taking this new technology piece that you're bludgeoning children over the head with andtrying to turn this into another tool that they're only going to be able to use this much
(30:30):
of and ultimately it winds up being a negative for
Yeah, I don't know if I know the answer, but I laughed when you said co-pilot because Inoticed that logging into my work email the other day and I couldn't figure out how to get
to my email because co-pilot made it very challenging.
I think the best kind of metaphor for this is what's been going on with SEL for the last10 to 12 years and
(31:04):
The short version of that is instead of going down to the root and figuring out some ofwhat I was talking about before, I think, and the environment itself and the ways that can
change, there became this movement that, kids just need more of these SEL skills, which I,I'm a mental health professional.
(31:25):
I agree they need those skills.
I just don't think that calling them out and siloing them as a separate thing.
is the effective way to do that.
And so what happened is that's how it was presented.
It got siloed.
And then schools said, hey, we need to do SEL.
Every teacher is going to have a advisory.
They're going to teach these SEL uh lessons and provide these skills.
(31:52):
And the teachers were like, no, we don't want to do this.
We're not qualified.
We don't know how to talk about self-awareness and social awareness.
responsible decision making and all that stuff.
it didn't get, it wasn't equitable and how it was rolled out.
And so then it becomes, well, this ed tech company swoops in and they have the solutionand they go, we can do it for you.
(32:16):
And the school feels some responsibility to say that they're doing it well.
And so worse than the teachers trying to struggle through it and acknowledge that like,hey, this is messy.
I don't know exactly what I'm doing.
And that's part of this whole thing.
That's what SEL is anyways.
We've got EdTech on the scene and they're like, yeah, just press this button and it'llgive you everything that you need.
(32:37):
really kids, especially middle school and high school kids, they see right through thatstuff.
They're not participating.
They just want authenticity.
And that goes, I mean, that goes back to where I started with this is like the validationthat they're looking for is because they're not, they don't feel those authentic
connections.
There's a lack of trust in the system in terms of like meeting me as a human being.
(33:02):
And so that's where I think the biggest concern is, I guess to bring this back full circleis like the biggest concern is that the power and agency that we have to just be human
beings in these systems, we have made ourselves more robotic and less human.
And so the robot actually seems like the better option because it's going to show up withvalidation first instead of just leaning into like
(33:31):
It's just the over optimization and the hustle and the busyness.
And even in schools, it's not that big of a deal.
And everyone is burnt out.
The teachers, the kids, the administrators, we don't have to be in that spot, but we are.
And it's the name of the thing.
It's artificial.
Like, we're not becoming more dynamic and more organic.
(33:54):
We're becoming more artificial.
the tool's not adjusting to us as much as we're adjusting to it.
And this seems a lot like social physics, just like regular meat space physics, whereevery action has an equal and opposite reaction, and there's only so much emotional space
kids can deal with.
(34:14):
And how do you?
Yeah, that search for authenticity is huge.
And also the fear of being authentic is huge.
Like you might actually have terrible thoughts.
And if you express them and the AI sees it and listens to it, it might amplify thosepieces or you might be shunned for it.
(34:35):
mean, it feels like there's a real lack um of space for organic growth and control becausewe've just
embrace what we think is so much better, which is artificial, which by the way, it's veryinefficient.
It's not great.
It's not cost effective.
There's all kinds of problems with it, but it makes things happen really, really fast.
(34:57):
For some reason, we're more concerned with fast results as opposed to quality accuracy.
And it really feels like that's being pushed into education and on teachers in an unfairway.
100%.
Yeah, I think if the teacher was given some agency to, I'll talk about a little bit of aproject I did and I know an eighth grade teacher in Colorado that's doing this work as
(35:27):
well, he's basically doing whatever he wants and then tying back what, and whatever hewants is giving his agency and having them dictate within some red line.
boundaries like where the learning goes and then the kids drive it and the kids have topresent and the kids have to write and the kids have to so they have to do all these
(35:52):
things.
There's plenty of friction there but he's letting the kids drive within what I'm callingthese red line boundaries which is don't walk out into traffic.
Don't you know go to this place on the internet and if you don't do those things we're allgood here and I want you guys to drive it and then I'm going to be able to tie these back
and so I kind of did a similar
deal with some kids that I started a peer counseling program five years ago and I couldn'tcontrol, going back to control, I couldn't control, I spent a semester training them,
(36:22):
giving them credit and I couldn't control the flow of the kids that were coming in to seektheir support.
So at one point I said, I want you guys to do a project.
It wasn't for a grade, I just said, I'm giving you credit, it's pass fail, but you'regonna do this project.
what the project looks like is 100 % up to you.
I'm going to give you some data, school level data.
(36:45):
want you to look at it.
We'll gallery walk it.
And I want you to ask some questions and we'll go from there.
And the first four weeks were painful because they just wanted me to tell them what to do.
And they wanted to, it's just that that's how they were trained.
And we trained the curiosity out of them.
So fast forward, they, they run with it.
(37:06):
They, it was a great experience.
They publish.
This paper they're presenting to the adults.
They're the thought leaders We've shared power now.
I've opened doors for them to to get in front of adults and and the I think the reactionfrom adults when they see kids who have taken some agency Have gone through a thoughtful
(37:27):
process have collected some data have taken all these meaningful steps It's like standingovation and yet we don't give them any space and then we go back to business as usual
and we don't give them any space to actually do that.
And so that was kind of where my side project impact league came from.
It's just this idea that when you give kids some space to lean into their agency,something that they're super motivated to kind of run with, and you give them a little bit
(37:58):
of light mentorship and guidance, like they're gonna do amazing things.
We just need to get out of their way, create those red lines.
And that's how they learn.
I mean, the level of confidence, capacity, ah the change in 12 to 18 months, way more thanyou see in a typical classroom.
(38:19):
10x.
Like if we can bring more of that into the classroom, give the teachers the agency to dothis sort of thing or build new curriculum that does this.
think that that is one at least answer to this big puzzle.
ah
treat them like IEPs, right?
Individual education programs that can be tailored to the individual that can run throughthis kind of process to give them that kind of feedback.
(38:40):
But you have to make space, like Scott was saying, for the emotional connection andinteractions.
Where I think if you use these things as derivative tools that go through and look atthese KPI indicators and then also added in the emotional context piece inside of this,
you can actually go through and have those kinds of interactions.
I think you'd be much better off.
And I think we have to stop measuring things as ABCs, Ds, or ABCs, Ds and Fs, becausethat's not what the criteria for output is anymore.
(39:06):
I mean, if you look at the way that these systems actually work, they're 51 % positive.
That 1 % is the effective value that they actually make and grow and generate in thoseLLMs.
businesses, most successful corporations aren't 100 % successful.
They're 51 % successful or better.
Yeah.
(39:26):
That 1 % can derive a lot.
I think that needs to be put into education.
And I think other countries have done this.
Scott, it sounds like your program is definitely leaving the forefront on this.
Where can folks learn more about it and follow your work?
Yeah, theimpactleague.org.
We provide micro grants to youth.
We give them some light mentorship.
The goal is to amplify impact and really support the next generation of change makers indoing the type of work that I know they can do.
(39:53):
They have incredible potential.
We just need to give them some space to do that.
So that's where you can find more information about the program.
We'll have the links in the show notes.
Anything you want to add here that we didn't get to?
No, I think the only thing would be to look at the people you love and stay connected tothem.
(40:14):
And I've been trying myself to go back to friendships and folks have gotten disconnectedfrom it, just to reconnect.
And I think that's just going to be the most important currency going forward is thathuman connection.
Could not agree more.
Thank you so much, Scott.
This has been great.
I really appreciate your time.
Thank you, Scott.
Likewise.
(40:38):
All right, our thanks Scott.
Boy, that's really loud.
All right, our thanks to Scott Merkel.
Great conversation there.
found it validating in a lot of ways as a parent.
There's so many things where he was talking about like the red lines and just sort ofgiving kids the freedom to experiment and grow within those boundaries.
know, essentially, within those boundaries, essentially, you know, don't run into traffic,but you know, go play in the yard.
(41:04):
These are the kinds of things I do as a parent is try to give my kids the freedom toexplore, to go out and be kids.
It's a novel concept seemingly now, but I mean, when I was a kid, that's how we grew up.
We came home from school, said hi to our parents if they were home.
More often they weren't.
And we were just out in the neighborhood until dinner.
And if you weren't home by dinner, parents might've been concerned, but for the most part,kids were allowed to be kids and explore.
(41:28):
And there's so much emphasis on testing and getting it right and...
being on the optimized path to make the most of every opportunity.
And I get it, like there's a lot of value in that.
There's a lot of missed opportunity I think that does come along if you don't work towardssomething.
But if you're allowed to explore what that something is for yourself, I think it's justgonna lead to a much more fulfilling existence for that kid that you're trying to raise in
(41:53):
the world.
Lots of great information there.
Lots of information from Scott that you can find at his website, theimpactleague.org thatis linked at our website, brobots.me.
And that's where we'll be back in just a few days with another episode.
Thanks so much for listening.
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