When 16-year-old Lara Jeetley checks her phone in the morning she scrolls through the messages her friends have sent her and then, if there’s something on her mind, she opens ChatGPT, asks a question out loud and listens to the answer.
“Sometimes I ask things I was thinking about overnight,” she says. “Just random thoughts. Or if I had an interesting dream I might ask about that.”
Lara uses ChatGPT every day, multiple times a day. Everyone she knows at school does the same. According to the last poll by Ofcom, four out of five 13-17 year olds in the UK are using generative AI. Early attempts to ban the technology in schools have given way to acceptance (or resignation) that this is an inescapable part of the world that students are growing up in.