AI changed the world while the class of 2026 moved through high school. Here’s what they think of their new future

The class of 2026 is graduating into a volatile world made more so by the rapid development of artificial intelligence.

Spokane area high school seniors are unsettled by the technology, embracing its potential to help humanity even as some of them worry it may destroy it.

“Society, even now, is pretty lazy, and adding AI into that just ensures that people won’t do things for themselves, so all these things that people should be doing that helps open neuro pathways in your brain, they won’t do because they have AI so readily available,” said Sof Harris of Lewis and Clark High School, who plans to study nursing in the United Kingdom. “So I think we should definitely limit the ways that we can use AI.”

Ethan Gingras, who will graduate from Ridgeline High School and study biochemistry at Chapman University, said on one hand, AI could be “really beneficial for humanity.”

“Or AI is slowly going to take over a vast number of jobs and slowly just kind of dwindle down mankind,” he said. “AI really needs to stay clear of the humanities, creativity, artistically. When it’s not coming from a real human, you can’t see the real emotion and passion put into it, and it just ends up feeling, funny enough, artificial.”

When the class of 2026 were freshmen, ChatGPT was released to the public. It signaled the start of what now appears to be a drastic change in society, in how we work, learn and interact.

Some graduates are frustrated with their schoolmates’ deepening dependence on AI.

“I notice a good 30% of my classmates at least pop into ChatGPT, paste that prompt with no further specifications, and then paste that exact output to their Word document, maybe minus a couple em dashes to make it less obvious, and then they just submit it,” said Jessica Morozov, a senior at Ferris High School, who plans to attend Gonzaga University in the fall to pursue a degree in data science. “These students are getting better scores, but they’re really not learning.”

Henry Klesch, a senior at Lewis and Clark High School, said he’s noticed the decline during his high school years.

“I’ve just seen people degrade in their cognitive function since the introduction of AI, and that’s kind of sad,” said Klesch, who is undecided about his major at Western Washington University. “It’s extremely common.”

Harris is troubled by society outsourcing much more to AI than school work.

“When we don’t think for ourselves about specific issues, then we’re losing that empathic side of ourselves, especially when we’re just like asking ChatGPT, ‘Break up with my girlfriend for me.’ That’s just not what we want for our future,” Harris said.

AI is so easy to use, it’s hard to avoid, some students say.

“When you fall into that habit, you fall into that rabbit hole,” Gingras said. “You become very reliant on AI on even just the simplest assignments or projects,” Gringras said. “I’ve seen kids do it before where there’s been an assignment that would take five minutes to do on their own, but they just can’t help using AI to cheat. AI is a tool that is going to be there in the future, it will always be here from now on, and I think us as a race just needs to be able to use it for good and not for bad.”

But using AI in classwork isn’t always cheating. It’s often encouraged by teachers.

Isabella Sun, a senior at Mead High School who will attend the University of Washington in the fall for biotechnology, sees AI as a tool.

“For the most part the teachers sort of use it as a ‘useful’ tool to make lessons, and students like to use it for their homework, or generate images,” Sun said.

While job shadowing in the medical field, Sun saw  doctors using AI to take notes while listening to patients.

“I felt like it was a lot more efficient,” Sun said. “The doctor can focus on diagnosing and treating more patients.”

Harris noted teachers are encouraging students to use AI for certain things, like creating algorithms. It comes from a good place – to understand the way the world is changing – but there’s still a danger, he said.

“Using AI is like the least complicated thing in the world, and so when people are like, ‘You need to learn how to use AI,’ that’s super easy. Just learn it, that’s fine, but I think it’s more complicated in the sense that saying ‘learn AI’ is basically just saying ‘accept AI,’ and I think there’s a difference between the two of those.”

Morozov said some bad outcomes from AI aren’t fully the fault of the models. AI’s output depends on good instructions.

“You can’t fault the barista for giving you an iced latte when you just said coffee, and you really wanted hot black coffee,” Morozov said. “It’s your responsibility to be clear.”

AI has redirected the paths of many in the class of 2026.

The rise of AI has affected the computer science job market, especially with the recent introduction of autonomous AI ‘agents’ such as Claude Code.

“A lot of my friends that are going into computer science, they’re very concerned about how the job market is going to be for them and what jobs will be available,” Sun said. “I’m not really concerned about medicine, but I know a lot of other people who are concerned with what they’re able to do with their degrees in the future.”

Morozov noted how AI has changed the data science field in particular.

“So much of it can be permitted by AI. There’s not really a need for a person to be skimming through vast amounts of data,” she said. “Instead of analyzing those outputs, I want to be the one training the model.”

Klesch said AI affected his job outlook.

“Now it’s a lot harder to think of something that could be viable that I can do,” he said. “I feel like finance and similar fields could be automated so easily.”

Harris isn’t sure how AI might hurt his chances at nursing, but he’s moving forward with that path.

“I worry about other people’s jobs, especially for ones that I wish we could keep humans and like artists,” Harris said. “That’s such a big concern. I don’t think it’s okay for people to make AI art. Yeah, and I wish that would stop.”

William Aldred, who is graduating from Lewis and Clark, wants to be a pilot. He’s pondered the possibility of AI making it harder to enter the field, but he thinks pilots have job security.

“Around, like, the ’70s and ’80s, that’s when computers really found their way into the cockpit, and so originally there was the pilot, the copilot, and the flight engineer, and the flight engineer was replaced by the just computer, and so people think, like, oh, if there’s AI in the cockpit, will there only be one person?” Aldred said. “But I think it’s a pretty universal thought, where you would not want to put yourself in a plane with no one able to control it.”

Morozov hopes to see AI have beneficial uses in the future.

“I hope that it truly is augmenting people’s brains, and we are able to increase our productivity without sacrificing human souls,” Morozov said.

Sun draws a parallel to previous technological advancement. She’s hopeful that Congress steps in to prevent some of the potential harm from AI.

“It’s sort of like the internet when that came out. There was just so much freedom, and that also came with false information,” Sun said. “I could see the same happening in our generation.”

Laura Sheikh contributed to this report.

Slack and Sheikh were members of the 2024 Spokesman-Review high school intern class. Slack is graduating this year from Ridgeline High School. Sheikh is graduating from Lewis and Clark High School.