Please consider supporting urban debate today.

It will help reduce inequity in an AI World.

I think it’s fair to say that those of us who have been thinking about AI in education for a while are all moving towards the same conclusion: What is most important is not how to use the most recent chatbot or agent, but how to prepare students to live and thrive in a world of hyperintelligent machines.

Sure, this involves basic literacy, which includes the use of the tools, but more fundamentally it involves developing communication, collaboration, and critical thinking in a way that supports metacognition and the development of judgment and wisdom.

While schools may struggle to upskill their staff on the technical aspects of such a fundamental transition, which is really a new industrial era, there are a lot of programs in place in many schools to prepare students for an AI World that just need to be accelerated.

One of those is academic debate, which exists in many higher SES schools in both extra and co-curricular forms. Many of the nation’s most prominent individuals were former high school debaters, and many of those say that academic debate was is most prepared them for their careers (none of them reference taking an AP test as making any contribution). Two days ago, Eric Tucker published a “Whose Who” list of former debaters.

Across the US, many nonprofits have arisen to provide these opportunities to lower SES students. Tonight, one of those nonprofits, the New York City Urban Debate League (NYCUDL), hosts its annual gala.

The gala supports the league’s efforts to bring debate programs to almost *220* low-income to high-poverty schools* in NYC. Close to *4,000* students are represented.

In May, the organization ran 10 debate tournaments that had more than 1,000 participants. Yes, that’s 10 debate tournaments in one month. It was 572 rounds of debate, where students delivered 4, 390 speeches. Since the start of the year, they have run more than 40 debate tournaments.

The students and families in this league already confront significant socioeconomic challenges, and there is no debate that AI is going to lead to both a greater concentration of wealth and produce significant job loss in many of the areas in which the parents are employed (translators, call center workers, uber drivers). And they are not benefiting from the explosive growth of the stock market driven by high-tech gains.

In a transition to an AI World, our lowest SES communities will need the most support, and they will need it in a way that helps youth develop the essential skills that are needed in an AI World. I don’t know of any better way to do this than supporting debate.

More from Eric, and more photos below.