AI panic follows the same historical pattern as comic books, TV, and screen time.

The real issue is the quality of engagement with AI, not exposure to it.

Educational systems were already broken before AI arrived and AI made it more visible.

It seems every generation needs a villain. Comic books were going to corrupt children. Television would rot attention spans. Video games resulted in aggression and isolation. Then came the tsunami of smartphones, social media, and even the phrase "screen time"—a powerful term that offers no distinction between reading philosophy on a tablet and scrolling celebrity gossip. Now we have a new threat, and the anxiety feels familiar because, well it is familiar. The names change, but to me the moral panic stays about the same.

The Imprecision Problem

What troubles me here isn't the concern itself, as some of it is clearly warranted. What troubles me is the collapse into a sort of generic imprecision. We talk about "AI use" as though all engagement with these systems is lumped in the........

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