Bring the course together in a Human Agency Plan. Explain your rules, show evidence from your portfolio and decide when you will review your plan again.
Video · 2:42Activity time is additionalStudent course
Your next moves
Make the lesson yours.
Before watching, write your first answer: What kind of human do you want AI to help you become?
Watch the story. Pause when a choice or claim needs checking.
Open the Think First activity below and complete it before any AI use.
Revise your answer in your own words. Explain what you changed and why.
Your activity / Right here
Bring a notebook. Begin below.
The activity is included on this page. Work on paper or in your own document; keep your first attempt and the evidence you checked.
Warm-up: Dr. Q's Question
What kind of human do you want AI to help you become?
My first answer: ________________________________________________
Mike's Mix-Up: The Plan With No Stop Sign
Made-Up Example.
Two weeks before Pitch Day, Mike wrote his first Human Agency Plan by himself, with no AI. That was real progress. Then his group red teamed it and found problems.
His first draft said:
• "AI can help me with everything except cheating."
• "I will verify when it's important."
• "I will use my saved time better."
• It had no date and no stop rule.
What went wrong? Talk it through with a partner, then write your answers.
• Which line is too vague to follow? Rewrite it as a specific "may" and "may not."
• Who decides "when it's important," and when? What does that line leave out?
• What would a specific plan for saved time look like?
• What stop rule and review date would you add?
Think First: A Letter to Your Future Self
No devices. Pen and paper. About 20 minutes.
Write a letter to yourself, by hand, to open in one year or on graduation day. Include:
1. Three things you care about now that you hope you still care about then.
2. One thing you want to be able to do without any AI.
3. One thing you hope AI helps you get better at.
4. One question you want your future self to answer.
5. A last line: "Dear future me, don't let anything take ______."
Seal it. Give it to your instructor or a family member to keep until the date you wrote on the envelope.
Pause & reflect
What changed in your thinking?
Write one sentence in your notebook. Name what you checked, what you chose, or what you want to explore next.
Read the video transcript
Read along, pause, or return to an idea. This transcript follows the selected lesson video.
Hi, I'm Carla, an AI avatar.
This is our last chapter together,
so Dr. Q saved his biggest question for the end.
Get comfortable.
What kind of human do you want AI to help you become?
Remember Mike's four-minute essay from Chapter 1,
the one he couldn't explain?
Here he is on Pitch Day, presenting his Human Agency Plan.
His group tackled food thrown away in the cafeteria.
For ten days they counted unopened milk cartons by hand.
Then they asked AI to find patterns,
and it counted Tuesday twice.
They caught it because they had done the counting themselves.
AI may quiz me, track my deadlines,
ask me questions, and red team my plans.
AI may not write anything I sign my name to,
decide my values, or see my private information.
Walk me through it.
And this time, he could.
Every line.
No notes.
From a four-minute essay he couldn't explain to a plan he
wrote, tested, and defended.
Geoffrey Hinton, who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in
Physics, said: "We have no experience of what it's like to
have things smarter than us."
Experts disagree about how big the risks are and how soon
they could come.
That's a reason to keep your own judgment.
Nobody has that experience yet.
Your generation is getting it now,
one habit at a time.
Think first.
Verify.
Stay in charge.
Some things stay human: relationships,
curiosity, values, judgment, creativity,
and the right to push back.
And when AI gives you time back,
remember a line from Rob's first edition:
time returned is capacity, not destiny.
You decide where it goes.
Thinking.
Boredom.
Making things.
People.
Rest.
UNESCO's AI competency framework for students has three
levels: Understand, Apply, Create.
It aims to prepare students as "responsible users and
co-creators of AI."
Co-creators.
That's you.
This week you'll write your Human Agency Plan,
let an AI try to poke holes in it,
and decide for yourself what to change.
Then your group will pitch a real solution to a real problem.
Your plan is version 1.
Tools change.
Rules change.
You change.
So your plan gets a date and a next audit.
One last thing.
The first edition of this book ended with six words.
They still say it best, and now they belong to you too.
Control the workflow.
Keep the agency.
Before you use an AI tool
Follow your course or institution's rules. Use an instructor-approved tool that permits your age, and meet any required consent conditions. Keep names, contact details, school records, and other private information out of prompts. Use fictional examples when you can.
Learning without an AI account
Follow the demonstration, pause before each answer, and do the reasoning on paper. Discuss what you would ask, how you would check it, and which decisions would remain yours.
About the characters and voices
This course uses AI-created characters and synthetic voices. Carla is an AI avatar. They help tell the story; they are not real students sharing testimonials.
Designed for high-school and community-college learners. Choose examples from your classes, work, and everyday life. Keep your completed work in your course portfolio.
