By Florian Barnett-Trier (Y12)
Recently, La Chât was privileged enough to host the brilliant Meagan Fallone. Having worked at the forefront of climate and social entrepreneurship for over a decade, Meagan has been instrumental in several outstanding projects involved in reducing inequalities. Her work has made a momentously positive impact on the lives of over ten million young girls; as such, she is extremely decorated, receiving accolades such as the WISE and New Zealand’s 2018 Hillary Institute Laureate Award.
A key part of Meagan’s work is adapting and harnessing technologies for good, rather than resisting them, which was the topic of her La Châtaigeneraie visit, during which she gave a fascinating seminar on AI. She spoke on how, while artificial intelligence will render some jobs obsolete, it will also open pathways into jobs that have never existed before, or vastly changed. Overall, her focus was on drilling into us the idea that although things will change, and the fact that we have the chance to direct that change, from the angle of growth.
She touched upon how we may need to work several jobs in the future just to support ourselves: a shocking revelation, however, one that may become an everyday occurrence. She also expressed her belief that even if AI led to global conflict, the benefits would still outweigh the negatives. Talking to students after the talk (haha), the general vibe was one of optimism, and people were very impressed with the content, with the skill with which Meagan spoke.
It is no surprise that the subject was of interest to La Chât students, as AI and its place in society become ever more involved conversations. In fact, one student I spoke to was adamant that AI had no role in modern life, and that no good could come of it, something that was echoed by a few of his peers. Recent polling suggests that 61% of young people believe that AI will significantly harm our relationships and cognitive functions, compared to just 12% who believe the contrary. According to Meagan, cognitive decline is to be expected as AI expands its grip on our lives, and it’s up to us to combat that on an individual level, perhaps with the Wordle.
That being said, there is still optimism that AI can be a force for good amongst the youth, particularly in education, with 69% of students mentioning that Large Language Models (the most common of them being the infamous ChatGPT) had helped them learn something new, with only 6% stating that they never use AI. How we handle AI is and will continue to be a contentious topic in our societies moving forward. So smash like on this article, drop a comment down below, and hit that follow button!
La chat was thrilled to host her, and we hope she comes again soon.
Thank you, Meagan.