She fought the law and the law... listened? What?

Way back in October, I wrote a newsletter column about my daughter confronting her school administrators over something she had a moral objection to.

I kept it vague, but now I can brag … er, talk about it more freely.

My kid is an artist, which is bizarre because I cannot draw stick people, so I assume she gets her talent from my sister, who is also an artist.

And as an artist, she has serious concerns about generative AI, mostly around the unequivocal fact that this type of AI steals from artists to “learn” and uses that art to create other art, without the consent of the artist or credit.

She kept those concerns to herself until she discovered that her high school’s graphic design classes were using generative AI in schoolwork … and that a new school logo plastered around the school was generated using AI.

Cue the outrage. She started a petition that got 100 signatures in an hour from her fellow students and wrote a letter to the principal outlining her argument and asked that generative AI no longer be used in the school. Other students put up posters.

The principal was annoyed. The graphic design teacher, well, I can only describe him as incensed, telling my teen that he viewed it as a personal attack and arguing with her about it. In a meeting with her, three teachers told my daughter all the reasons why she was “wrong.”

So she wrote a follow-up letter. Then she dropped a copy of the letter off at the school division for the superintendent.

The teachers in the school told her she was “going too far.” The students who put up posters were apparently threatened with suspension for littering the school walls. (I’m not a big emoji person, but it seems appropriate here: .)

The next meeting involved me, and a compromise was reached: the school would no longer use generative AI for work that represented the school—brochures, posters, and that new AI logo would be replaced.

Except none of that happened.

So my kid wrote a third letter asking to talk to the school division trustees.

The next thing she knew, the superintendent arranged a meeting with her, myself, the principal and one of the division’s technology directors.

Unbeknownst to us, her October letter to the superintendent started a flurry behind the scenes, and the division was working on a policy to prevent generative AI from being used in classrooms. She told my teen that she had been learning about generative AI since receiving the letter and wanted to make sure it was being used responsibly or not at all.

I was flabbergasted. My teen was triumphant. The principal still looked annoyed.

My teen graduates from high school in two weeks. While I hope she learned her ABCs and 123s, I also hope she learned to question authority, to do it with dignity and righteousness, and when it’s important, to “go too far.”

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