Are we raising children, or prompt engineers?

That question has been quietly needling me.I watched a teenager type into AI, “Make this sound more sophisticated.” And it did. Instantly. Part of me was impressed. That’s modern literacy, isn’t it? Adaptable. Efficient. Smart.But another part of me wondered - does she know what sophisticated actually means? Could she have done it herself if the machine wasn’t there?We’re shifting from knowing things to knowing how to ask for things. And asking well is powerful, yes. But if the question replaces the grappling - the rewriting, the frustration, the “this doesn’t quite sound like me yet” - then something essential is lost.I remember a girl who kept rewriting a paragraph in tears. “I just want it to sound like me,” she said. That’s education at its best - not polish, but voice. Not optimisation, but originality. AI can produce something clever. But can it produce something that sounds like you?Maybe at home we start asking different questions. Not “What did AI say?” but “What do you think?” Maybe we encourage our children to write first, then compare. Notice what feels alive. Notice what feels bland. Because the danger isn’t that our children will use AI. They will. The danger is that they stop authoring their own minds.We don’t want to raise a generation who can optimise beautifully but struggle to originate.And that’s a conversation worth having with them, each other, and ourselves.Thank you for pausing with me. Take care. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe