I'm 16 and Scared About What AI Is Doing to My Generation, Writes Singapore Student

A 16-year-old student from Victoria Junior College has published a powerful firsthand account of watching his generation embrace AI with what he describes as troublingly little critical reflection. Writing in RICE Media, Jayvier Chua — founder of a youth advocacy group called Youths for Humans — argues that while AI is undeniably powerful, Singapore's students and society at large have not paused to consider what is being lost in the rush to adopt it.

Chua describes how a classmate used AI to complete a literature assignment and received full marks, something he says would have been considered academic dishonesty barely a year ago. 'I remember how, barely a year ago, something like that would have been considered academic dishonesty. Marks would be deducted, scripts voided, and disciplinary action might have been taken,' he writes. 'Today, as I see my teachers themselves joining the AI craze, I cannot help but feel a great sadness.' That experience led him to found Youths for Humans, a group of like-minded peers aiming to push back against the unquestioning embrace of AI.

The essay grapples with the tension between AI's undeniable capabilities — he notes that GPT-5.4 recently proved a famous unsolved mathematical problem in a single afternoon — and the way it is actually being used in classrooms. 'Witnessing the state of the classroom, where AI has all but replaced the need for my peers to think, it is difficult to believe that the hyper-intelligent machine of automated thought is generating subpar literature essays for teenage boys.' He also raises deeper questions about whether AI will create enough new jobs to replace those it eliminates, citing predictions from Anthropic and OpenAI that superintelligent AI may emerge within a decade.

Chua is careful not to position himself as anti-technology. 'I don't hate AI — I am simply cautious,' he writes. His group's goal is not to stop AI adoption but to introduce dissenting views into the public conversation. 'Because if Singaporeans never hear dissenting views, can they think critically about AI — or anything else they're told to accept with open arms?' The essay concludes with a poignant observation: 'If Singapore is putting all its chips on AI now, we're just the ones who'll have to live with how the bet lands.'

Why it matters for Singapore: Chua's voice represents a demographic that is rarely heard in Singapore's AI policy discussions: the students actually living through the transformation that policymakers and educators are orchestrating. His concerns about academic integrity, critical thinking, and the long-term job prospects for his generation deserve serious consideration, even — or especially — as Singapore presses ahead with national AI missions and S$1 billion research investments. The question he poses is not whether AI is powerful, but whether Singapore is building the resilience and critical capacity to use that power wisely.