Walk Before You Drive

On 25-10-2026 I give a talk called Walk Before You Drive. It is for school students.

It is not a warning. I am not there to take anyone's phone away. I want students to use AI more cleverly than most adults do.

Here is the talk in short.

The question every student has heard

At a wedding, an uncle asks a fifteen-year-old boy what he wants to become. The boy says, "Computer scientist."

A relative laughs. "The machine is already writing the code. Why study all this?"

The boy has no answer. This talk is the answer.

Build the ability first

A shopkeeper sells four items at twenty rupees each. He asks for three hundred rupees. Is he right?

You know he is not. You did not need a calculator. You have a feel for numbers.

That feel came from years of doing tables by hand. We learn the work first. Later the calculator is allowed, because by then it extends what we already have.

Build the ability first. Then let the tool extend it.

The hand and the car

Think of how you learned to ride a cycle. Someone held the back of the seat.

That hand did not pedal for you. It steadied you while your own legs did the work. Every day it let go a little more.

Now imagine a car drove you to school every day instead. You would arrive on time. You would never learn to ride.

AI can be that hand. It can also be that car. It is the same machine. You decide which one it is.

That is the meaning of the title. You will drive one day. These machines will be part of your whole life. But first, your own legs.

What one study found

Researchers tested this in a high school in Turkey. Students practised maths in three groups. One group used an ordinary AI chat. One used an AI set up to give only hints. One had textbooks alone.

Then the machines were taken away, and everyone sat an exam.

The students who practised with the answer machine did worse than the students with textbooks alone. The students who got hints did not.

The machine was the same. Only the setup was different.

This is one study, in one school, in one subject. It is not the final word. But it matches what teachers see.

One question, three moves

Before you type anything, ask yourself: am I being steadied, or carried?

Then use three moves.

1. Try first, then ask. Say where you got stuck.
2. Ask for a hint, not the answer. The smallest push that gets you moving.
3. Close it and explain it back. Say it in your own words. If you can, it is becoming yours.

Being stuck does not mean you are weak at the subject. It is usually the moment learning begins.

The answer for the uncle

Yes, the machine will do a great deal. That is exactly why you need more in your head, not less.

Someone must check the machine's answer. Someone must notice when a confident answer is wrong. Someone must decide which problems are worth solving, and take responsibility when things go wrong.

Only a person can do that. And that person is built the slow way, by doing the work, with a hand that steadies, until you no longer need the hand.

The person who can check the machine is the one in charge of it.

Before you type, ask: am I being steadied, or carried?

Walk before you drive.