Episode 32 - How People are Using AI in 2025
00:00:00 Jon Bergmann: Welcome back to the Reach Every Student podcast. I'm your host, John Bergman. Before we dive into today's topic, how people are using AI in 2025, I want to encourage you to think about your summer PD goals. at my website, jonbergman.com, I have created a number of courses that I think will help you prepare your teachers for, this AI world. I've created three courses, one course on, flipped learning in the age of AI. One that's for a K-12 edition. There's one on flipped learning for higher education in the age of AI. And then lastly, mastery learning in the age of AI. And so I would encourage you to go to jonbergman.com slash courses. And if that's, something you would be interested in, you'll find all the information that you need. So join there. Yeah. Now let's get to the topic today.
00:00:47 Jon Bergmann: You know, as we look at AI some more today, I want to talk about how AI is being used by people. What's interesting is that as people are analyzing AI, They're analyzing how people are using the AI a little bit at a time. A really interesting infographic came across my feed. This morning that really has jumped out at me. It was, it was an analysis done by Mark Zio Sanders for the Harvard Business Review. And he contrasts by looking at thousands of chat GPT or, at least I don't know if it's all chat GPT, but, generative AI, conversations that people have had and asks what they were doing. In 2024, the number one thing was generating ideas. Number two, therapy and companionship. Number three, specific search. Number four, edit text. Number five, explore interests. And what's interesting is that it's changed significantly. The top thing in 2025 is therapy and companionship. And I really want to just pause for a moment. And that terrifies me. We, we, we as humans are designed for relationship as I've talked many, many times when I work with teachers and students is, you know, students don't care what you know until they know that you care. And human relationship is, you know, it's, it's part of how we're built. It's ontologically. What we are made for is that relationship and having a relationship with something that isn't real, right? That isn't a person really, it scares me. And, and recently before I saw this infographic, I, I did a, A bit of a dive into AI companionship apps. These things exist and the more I read about these, the more I got concerned about these because We need embodied relationships, relationships with people who are like real, not disembodied relationships, relationships with AI. or with some bot or whatever. And there's certainly been cases, I'm sure you have seen these, where people have fallen for AI Bots instead of for real people. I mean, there's this deep, deep needed, seed built in. I think into the, just the nature of human beings is that we long for companionship. We long for relationship. We long for like that real relationship. And my huge concern with the AI stuff is that it's fake. You know, the problem with real relationships Is there messy, right? You know, my wife and I, we sometimes fight, we disagree. We, you know, we've been married for thirty plus years and we, you know, life is, you know, we, life is good. I've married an amazing woman, but it's, it's messy. But my fear with these AI bots is they're not so messy. And I think people, there's actually some studies about some of these AI companionship apps that people are forgoing real relationships with real people. To have relationships with the AI, you see, because the AI won't ever really completely demand that it'll be just what you want, just what you quote unquote need. But what you really need is to get involved people on average, right? They need to get involved in real relationships with real people. And boy, this is just a scary thought. And I, there are companies and their goal is to. Make AI boyfriends and girlfriends. And, and some of these have even become very, how shall we say it? Adult in their nature. that's terrifying to me. You know, no, for me as a, as a teacher of, of, you know, adolescence. I am concerned. I, I want the students to get into like real relationships with real people. And they're gonna have unrealistic expectations if they jump into these relationships with these AI things because no boyfriend will ever match the AI boyfriend. The AI boyfriend will always know when your birthday is and will always be kind. Will be all these things. And you know, that's just not reality. Sometimes, you know, you need to work through conflict because life will have conflicts and we'll get in these little weird silos where we think we have relationship, but we don't. So anyways, I know I'm ranting, but boy, this, this is terribly concerning to me for future generations. If people are gonna be turning to these AI bots for therapy and companionship, the number one use of AI. In 2025 number two in 2024, Number two, by the way, 2025 is organized life. That's new on the chart. It wasn't there before. And that, you know, I don't necessarily think that's necessarily bad. Is there a way for it to, you know, run my calendar, help me to get my life organized? Not a big deal. Third one, guess what? It's also new on the list. It says to find purpose. How is AI gonna help me find purpose? Man, ah, that is, again, terrifying to me. Those are the human things that we need. We need to find those trusted people who could help us think through purpose. You know, I work with adolescents. And at this time of year, I do something that I've done for many years is I make an individual video for every student of mine. And I have basically a conversation. I turned on the webcam. And I just say, let me just reflect on the nature of your year. And then I often will say, hey, let me give you some old man advice. You know, I'm sixty-one And my students are sixteen seventeen fifteen something like that, depending on which group I'm in with. And yeah, I feel like there's too much pressure on Gen Z and the pressure is you got to figure out who you are. They're sixteen they're seventeen or maybe they're twenty-two whatever. I think we did not get so focused on us finding your purpose. What I've told them, this is sort of some advice that I have been thinking about in my own life and I have seen it bear out. I've said do the next right thing and then do the next right thing. Like a thousand percent, I don't, can you be a thousand percent convinced? A hundred percent convinced that doing faithful acts of Of right things repeated over and over and over again, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade will Will, will reap huge benefits. We know that's true just in lots of habits. So if you get up and you go to the gym, you know, four days a week and you do that over and over and over again. What's going to be effect on your life in general, that's going to be a very positive thing for your life. And if you, spend some time meditation, meditating every day, I, I, I'm a person of faith, Christian faith. And so I have had a devotional life for forty some years and doing that every day. And I journal and I've journaled every day, for, I don't want to say every day, almost every day for forty years. The impacts on my life have been huge. And so that's one of my big pieces of advice I'm trying to give students is that that repeated habits, positive habits, and there's also negative habits. That you build into your life will make a huge difference. And that will help you to find your purpose. I was talking about purpose. You know, in my case, I think about my journaling. I started journaling when I was twenty maybe. I'm sixty-one so forty years-ish I've been journaling. And I didn't realize that my journaling every day for years and years and years Decades now. I didn't realize that was going to someday turn into books. I was, if you had looked at me in high school and talked to my high school English teacher, she would have said, who's the least likely person to write a book? And I would have been at the top of that list. And I think that Daily writing helped me to kind of discover writing. And then when I began to write about, education and flip learning and all the stuff that I've gotten known for, it was really because In many ways, I had practiced writing every day. So I don't want AI to help me find my purpose. I think you're going to find your purpose by those consistent acts of doing the next right thing. So that scares me. All right. Number four, they say is enhancing learning. Now that I don't mind, right? How can I use AI to enhance my learning? Although I've said earlier, I am the wary AI educator. We've got to be careful. I don't want to offload all of my thinking to AI. I want, I need to develop my own thinking myself. And again, my concern is about my students again, sixteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen year old kids, and their brains are not fully developed. That is well documented in research, et cetera, et cetera. And we want our students. To learn better. Now will AI help them? Yes, but also it can hurt them. It can decrease cognitive, Skills, it can decrease, their critical thinking skills, their studies on this. And so I need to be, I want us to be careful on if that's, you know, again, this is a global study of all users of AI. So this isn't focused on how students use this. I'd love to see this graphic if it was, you know, students in different age categories. That would be very fascinating to see. Number six was generating code. I don't know anything about making code, but now it makes codes. Generating ideas, maybe. Number seven, fun and nonsense. Fun nonsense isn't bad. Improving code. Now, one thing that was interesting also to me, because as somebody who has been a, you know, proponent of personalized learning, personal learning last year was number nine. It dropped to number seventeen this year. And I think there's a lot of potential for AI to personalize learning. And maybe that's just because the amount of AI usage has skyrocketed. So maybe the number of people who are seeking personalized learning through, AI is maybe the same or more, but the actual number of users has significantly dropped. I do see one that's a really positive one. Number ten is healthy living. That's sixty-five spots up from last year. So I can, I can envision where AI could help me like design my workouts and help me to, you know, live more healthily in certain aspects of my life. So not all of this is bad. But I'm gonna again say that my biggest concern is number one, oh my gosh, therapy and companionship with a bot? Guys, if you're doing that, can I just... Be an old man and give you advice. Like I would, if you were my student, I would say, you know, talk to a real human, find somebody who you trust. there are mentors. There are people out there, surely. You can meet and learn from their lives, learn from their mistakes, learn from their successes. I've told this to my students again, again, you hear advice from old man here. You are the average of the five people you hang out with the most. It's not original with me. I heard it somewhere and I've shared that with students for years. And if you are struggling in life, And you want to reach out to the AI bot. I just want to say, find the right people to hang out with and your life will change. It's such a, such a huge deal. So anyways, this is not just this particular podcast today is not about reaching every student. I am just calling people to stop the AI companion apps. If there's a company who's making AI boyfriend and girlfriend apps, we need. I, I don't know. I, I am strong enough to say government should stop them from making them. This is, this is going to Be damaging to the world. And we're going to see, I, I don't know. This is my prediction. We're going to see a greater instances of. Of antisocial behavior because of these things, because people get isolated and they're going to have these high expectations. I, I, birth rates may fall. I know birth rates are falling, but I bet they'll fall even further if we think we can, because there's, there's, you see, there's a. There's an ROI on this, right? There's a return on your investment. If you are doing one thing, then you're not doing another, right? So if you're investing in an AI companion app instead of a real person, then that real person, that relationship doesn't flourish and grow. And there's just an increased number of people in, The world who are more lonely and more isolated and we need to get them connected with like real people and stop it, stop it with the AI companion apps. They are. I think they're going to be a blight on our, on the soul of the world. I really do. I, you know, we, we, we've learned a lot of things about, about. Alexia, for example, social media and how it's been detrimental, particularly for young people and particularly for young girls and that is well, well documented. we are at that moment where we. Are at the beginning stages of AI and we need to be very, very cognizant. We do not want to create things that will do harm. So if you own one of these companies, I'm gonna say it, you own one of these companies that's making an AI companion app, you will be harming the world. you know, even Google says, you know, do no harm. Well, don't be the guy who does harm. you just like the Hippocratic oath, right? The, the doctors take or whatever. They say that, you know, their goal is to not to hurt the patient. Well, if you are a company that's doing this, then you are. You're going to hurt the world. Stop it. You should be ashamed of yourself. How's that for a positive note? Okay. I am John Bergman. I am the wary AI educator and I am concerned about where AI is headed. And I, I also know the cat's out of the bag. It's going to be here whether I like it or not. And how are we then going to navigate this? How are we going to teach our students how to navigate this world? And I want my students to thrive and live in embodied relationships, not disembodied relationships
00:14:58 Jon Bergmann: with real people because that's what's going to help them thrive and become the amazing young People and leaders of the world that we're going to see in the, in the future. So let's get this right, people. Hey, this is John Bergman. Go out and reach every student.
