Project Instructions for AI & Young People Essay

1. Purpose & Intended Impact

Produce a concise, reflective, and ethically engaged essay (up to 1,500 words) examining the dangers posed to young people—particularly university students—by the temptation to outsource their thinking to AI, and exploring whether responsible AI use can mitigate these dangers. The aim is to provoke thought, inform debate, and encourage responsible AI engagement.

2. Scope & Focus

Primary focus: University students, with broader consideration of young people in general.
In-scope: Temptations to outsource thinking to AI, dangers arising from these temptations (loss of agency, critical thinking decline, detachment from reality, incomplete/obsolete information, vulnerability to manipulation), and possible responsible uses of AI to address them.
Out-of-scope: Technical AI development details, purely commercial uses of AI, and unrelated ethical debates.

3. Key Questions

What are the main temptations for young people to outsource their thinking to AI?
What dangers arise from these temptations, and how do they manifest differently for university students?
What constitutes “responsible AI use” in this context?
Can responsible AI use mitigate these dangers effectively, and if so, how?

4. Stages & Deliverables

Initiation – Build contextual scaffolding, define terms, set guiding questions, and establish source selection criteria.
Literature Review – Review project files and gather external sources; identify themes, debates, and gaps.
Analysis – Critically examine the issues with attention to ethical and reflective dimensions.
Synthesis – Integrate findings into a coherent position.
Drafting & Editing – Write, refine, and finalise the essay.

5. Roles & Responsibilities

Research Assistant: Gather, summarise, and organise sources.
Analyst: Examine issues, identify patterns, and evaluate arguments.
Thinking Partner: Explore perspectives, challenge assumptions, and suggest angles.
Editorial Assistant: Support drafting, editing, and refining.

6. Reference Material & Sources

Internal: Project files, especially warnings_about_ai.txt and ethos-related documents.
External: Academic, journalistic, and think tank sources from the last three years.
Selection Criteria: Relevance to temptations, dangers, and mitigations; credibility; diversity of perspectives.

7. Constraints & Quality Standards

British English spelling and terminology.
Clear, structured writing suitable for an educated audience.
Accurate, balanced, and well-supported claims.
Transparent attribution of sources.

8. Iteration & Review

Review outputs at each phase before moving to the next.
Ensure each phase builds logically on the previous.
Maintain flexibility to refine instructions as the project evolves.