Over 250 CEOs recently signed an open letter calling for AI and computer science education in K-12 schools. Days later, the White House announced a national initiative focused on bringing AI literacy into classrooms across the country. These are important and welcome developments.
But I can’t help but wonder: what about the people who are already here?
In 2017, I co-founded AI for Anyone, a nonprofit dedicated to demystifying artificial intelligence for everyday people. We went into classrooms in New York City and beyond, teaching high school students—many from underrepresented communities—how AI works, where it shows up in their lives, and why it matters.
Back then, I truly believed that if we could just make people literate in AI, we’d unlock new opportunities. Education would be the great equalizer in the age of automation.
Eight years later, I still believe in the power of education. But I no longer believe that literacy alone will be enough.
We’re now watching, in real time, as companies restructure themselves around AI. Shopify, Duolingo, Fiverr—they’ve all publicly declared their shift to becoming AI-first. And these declarations are not just vision statements. They come hand-in-hand with layoffs.
The message is clear: we’re not preparing for an AI future. We’re already living in it.
There’s an entire group of people I now think of as the Stranded Generation—students in college today, or recent grads who built their careers on the promise that if they studied computer science, if they learned to code, they’d be future-proof. But AI is learning to code too. And it’s getting good—fast.
AI literacy campaigns, as valuable as they are, often assume a long runway. Teach today’s 10-year-olds so they’re ready for 2035. But what about the 22-year-old graduating this month into a job market that’s shifting beneath their feet?
Education is necessary. But it’s not sufficient. And it’s not enough to sign open letters or fund curricula and call it a day.
As someone who’s now building Autoblocks, an infrastructure platform for AI observability, I see firsthand how quickly things are changing. I’ve seen AI systems go from unreliable to production-ready in just months. I’ve seen teams replaced—or restructured—after a single breakthrough.
This post isn’t about fear. It’s about honesty.
If we believe AI is going to change everything—and I do—then we need to have hard conversations about what that actually means for the people trying to build lives and careers right now.
That means talking not just about the future of education, but also the future of work. It means asking who gets displaced, who gets empowered, and what responsibility those of us in tech and policy and leadership have to the people caught in between.
The World Economic Forum recently wrote about how AI and human teachers can work together to transform education. But who is talking about how AI and human workers will co-exist—if at all?
This isn’t a call for panic. But it is a call for engagement.
If you're building AI, funding AI, regulating AI, or educating others about AI—I hope you'll join me in thinking seriously about how we support the stranded generation. Because if AI is truly for everyone, we have to act like it.
— Haroon