A High School Student Dispatch from Princeton's Envision AI Conference
SEUT Contributing Writer Adhithi is currently a senior in South Brunswick High School.
Introduction
It's not often that students in high school are given opportunities meant for individuals far beyond their years, whether in college or beyond. It's even less often that, upon arrival, high school students can meet others like themselves. The former is why, when SEUT Co-Executive Director Sharon Chae Haver reached out and asked whether I'd be attending the Envision AI Conference at Princeton University, I immediately said yes. How could one turn down an opportunity like this? The latter is what surprised me most. I was honored to be surrounded by so many high school students like me, interested, or more aptly, hungry, to hear about what's on the forefront of artificial intelligence across multiple fields from an ethical standpoint. The conference itself served as a reflection by experts on AI's trajectory thus far and going forward, as both a lens of optimism in some cases and skepticism or unfiltered cynicism in others. The following is my reflection on those reflections.
Networking
Although introduced as a crucial element to career building at almost every high school business club meeting or in every professional post on social media, networking is best understood when one is in the midst of the act itself. One of this conference's primary objectives was for students and professionals to meet others within the industry. I met people from across the country and across the world: teachers from boarding schools in New Hampshire, with whom I discussed high schoolers' pseudo-medieval sleep schedules; Emmett, an entrepreneur from San Francisco from whom I learned the surprising value of believing in yourself (he dropped out of college to pursue AI-centered entrepreneurship); Professor Kriebitz all the way from Germany, from whom I learned about the work being done in the international policy space; Sophia, a new researcher at the AI Ethics Lab, who showed me some of her projects outside of AI (a biodegradable faux skin for prosthetics); and fellow high school students like Nithura, who asked me questions about how to combine technology and humanities throughout their high school journeys.
I discovered that networking extends far beyond the strict "LinkedIn swapping" that online posts suggest. Successful networking means connecting with individuals beyond what's required, reaching toward a person's aspirations and initiatives rather than their experiences thus far. Successful networking means active listening and thinking beyond the traditional networking question of "what can this person offer me," instead asking "what can I learn from this person?" Assets come and go, but networking provides individuals with one that never deteriorates with time: knowledge. Employing this lens helped me gain invaluable knowledge from conference attendees.
AI & The Future of Jobs
As a high school senior beginning to think about the workforce, it's disheartening to be surrounded by rhetoric suggesting that AI proliferation will likely lead to my peers' and my unemployment before we've even begun our careers. That's why Professor Arvind Narayanan's opening keynote, "AI & The Future of Jobs (Reasons for Optimism)," was one of my favorites of the day. Narayanan spoke about how current AI assessments base their judgments on AI advancements across benchmarks, when in actuality, as shown in tested data, these benchmarks are meaningless markers of success given that models fall short in practical applications.
A job, he described, is a series of tasks. Although AI is able to automate various tasks, it is unable in its current and projected state to overtake most jobs. Narayanan compared this influx of AI panic to that of the Industrial Revolution: when a new tool is introduced into the market, people fear it will overtake their roles. Instead, the tool allows for expansion. Just as the steam engine allowed for monumental transportation progressions, AI will allow for software to be implemented in places never seen before, with automation on different scales, still entirely run and regulated by humans. In the midst of negativity, Narayanan's positive outlook was a bright spot of the day.
AI & Security
Edward You's "AI & Security" talk provided a vastly different outlook on the future, specifically America's future. In an intensive, informative, and mildly anxiety-inducing forty minutes, You detailed how nations are "bleeding" data, or in other words, unknowingly forfeiting information about themselves, to authoritarian regimes and nations with stronger technological bases. You, drawing on his extensive FBI background, spoke about how the biodata U.S. citizens are "bleeding" is especially harmful: by age 2, he shared, 80% of American children have an online profile. His discussion on the lack of international oversight regarding how this data is being used highlights how students need to be more aware of the information we give to models or any websites, and to take further steps to educate ourselves on being responsible digital citizens.
Rutgers AI & Human Rights Panel
As a student researcher at Rutgers' AI Ethics Lab, it was an honor to present alongside Dr. Nathan Walker, fellow researchers from Rutgers, and the Technical University of Munich. I shared the lab's current mission: to inform scholars and citizens alike about how elements of human rights are impacted by AI advancements, referencing legal instruments such as international policy. The lab's work is crucial in understanding how ethics and policy are instrumental to technological development. Tools built by humans for humans must consider those humans, of course, and standing at that podium helped me remember that these are principles all students should keep in mind when considering the ethical use of technology.
Conclusion
Princeton's 2026 Envision AI Conference was an incredible opportunity to learn from my peers, to learn from experts in the field, and most of all, to make new connections with people. When researching ethical usages of technology and policy, it's incredibly easy to get lost in the jargon that obscures the humans the words on the page try to protect. Learning new stories helped me remember those humans. Envision is an opportunity I'd recommend to any student looking to learn about how AI is advancing, or to any student who simply wants to learn more about the world around them.
