The conversation began with a consideration of Jonathan Haidt’s fragility theory, which posits that our institutions are overprotective of young people, shielding them from real-world situations that build up social and emotional resilience, making them “fragile” — more anxious and less resilient — ill-equipped to navigate the disruption of the contemporary world.

If the rising generation’s distrust and concern toward AI is both a rational response to the dangers of AI and a reflection of our institutional and societal failure to prepare them to thrive in this new environment, it prompts us to ask a new question. How do we build systems that help young people find and pursue purpose instead of institutions that accelerate their displacement?

Building for and with purpose requires we decide upon a genuine intergenerational compact on AI readiness and find institutional champions to enact it, thereby allowing us to move beyond individual actions to institutional commitments embedded within school systems, employers, and governments.

Participants rejected the implication held within the fragility narrative, that the problem is located within young people. That they are anxious, coddled, and undone by screens. The group agreed that fragility exists but originates within the overprotective institutions and adults who create anxious environments that transmit the idea of danger to young people without preparing them to handle it.

Knowledge work is among the first to be automated. Education credentials knowledge acquisition, but leaves graduates with neither a guarantee of employment nor a clear sense of purpose. The promise that following these steps will translate into a good life has departed, so too must the sense of obligation to perform these outdated steps.

Under the guise of protection while preparing them for adulthood, schools separate young people from real-world problems. Safety policy treats “children” as an addendum to larger agendas; young people are a variable rather than the purpose. Youth engagement is generally more theater than genuine, and no one “owns” childhood end to end.

Humans learn by failing, it is how a child learns to walk. Our education systems train that capacity out. Antifragile environments restore controlled contact with difficulty, uncertainty, and failure rather than engineering it away. Resilience is built through exposure and it has to start early.

Beneath algorithmic literacy and information health lies the capacity to reflect on one’s own thinking and on how information makes one feel. Some schools introduce this at age five; many students first encounter it as adults. In an AI world it is the grounding skill that must be taught deliberately and early.

Third spaces (malls, parks, and cafes) are disappearing and so increasingly are second spaces (workplace, shared schooling). These are the places where previous generations built skills and relationships and naturally practiced productive failure. Models for protecting and rebuilding these spaces exist for schooling, while locations such as defunct malls can be revitalized as third spaces for learning or social purposes.

From early childhood education through entry to the workforce, nobody agrees on what the system is for. This disagreement must be admitted openly so governments, employers, and educators can communicate honestly about what they want out of education and how to get it. Young people must be active participants in these conversations.

“The anxious generation is not youth. It’s the educators, parents, and institutions. Young people know the ladder’s broken out under them, it’s transmitted by anxious structures.”

“The kids are alright. Drug use is down, youth violence has dropped, kids exhibit more self-restraint and patience. None of this is being reported.”

“Research into what studies are being cited in the media on social media and harm found that six out of hundreds of studies got the attention. They were all the fear-based ones. There’s an attention economy driving not just how we think, but how we report.”

“The most important [new literacy] is metacognition. We already needed it in the attention economy. With AI you really need it — the ability to reflect on how something makes you feel.”

“There is no incentive for corporations to invest in public education initiatives. So we are good at building top-down strategy, but that grassroots bottom-up strategy is where we’re struggling right now and again, it’s because there’s no ROI, no incentive.”

“Every time you walk the halls of U.S. Congress, the senators’ staff are under the age of 30. They’re the ones creating these laws and writing the policies, and then the lawmaker just goes, ‘okay, that looks good.’ That’s scary — but it’s also the opportunity.”