A research project at the Center for Innovating the Future

The First AI-Native Generation

Core Question

How do sustained interactions with conversational AI systems affect cognition, identity formation, agency, relationships, epistemic development, and beliefs about minds, especially among young people?

Subsidiary Questions

1
Off-loading
Which cognitive capacities do young people stop developing when AI systems perform the thinking, remembering, and deciding for them?
2
Attribution
How do conversational interfaces shape what young people believe about minds, consciousness, and who deserves moral consideration?
3
Epistemic Authority
When AI becomes the default answer engine, how does the first AI-native generation decide what is true?

The Interview Series

Co-Existing with AI is the interview program behind this report. Long-form recorded conversations with AI researchers, founders, policymakers, and skeptics, transcribed, coded, and analysed as an elite-informant qualitative study.

Outputs

Flagship report, 30–50 pp.
Policy brief, 6–10 pp.
Developmentally Responsible AI Framework
Interview series, 30 conversations

Methods

Transparent literature review and long-form expert interviews, transcribed with speaker attribution and coded against a fixed frame. The interview corpus is analysed following Kulkov et al., Leveraging Podcasts as Academic Resources, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 2024.

Two limitations apply and are stated in every output. Participants were invited rather than sampled. Interviews were conversational rather than protocol-driven. Findings, hypotheses, and open questions are labeled as such.

Corrections Log

No corrections to date. Errors in published work are logged here with dates.


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