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What Should My Children Do?
From the author of Growth, one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2024, a guide for helping the next generation through an educational world, and a job market, forever changed by AI – as well as for anyone navigating the upheaval in today’s workplace
We live at an extraordinary technological moment. Every day, it seems, we hear about machines taking on tasks that we thought only human beings alone would ever making medical diagnoses and composing jokes, drafting legal arguments and designing beautiful buildings, writing lines of code and even forming relationships. The leaders of the largest AI companies now claim that, within a few years, we will build an AI that can outperform us at every task that we do.
For the last fifteen years, Prof. Daniel Susskind has been exploring the impact of technology on work. Recent developments in AI – ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok – are astonishing, but also best thought of as a remarkable new chapter in this far longer story.
Still, the most common question people have remains–what should my children do?
What Should my Children Do? is an optimistic and hopeful guide for parents thinking about how to help their families flourish in this age of astonishing labor market shifts. It is also for anyone thinking about their career, asking how to navigate the turmoil that is underway in the working world, as well as for business and political leaders navigating the same upheaval.
With his deep knowledge of AI and how the world of work is changing, Prof. Susskind offers an evidence-based look at the problem and a practical path forward.
We live at an extraordinary technological moment. Every day, it seems, we hear about machines taking on tasks that we thought only human beings alone would ever making medical diagnoses and composing jokes, drafting legal arguments and designing beautiful buildings, writing lines of code and even forming relationships. The leaders of the largest AI companies now claim that, within a few years, we will build an AI that can outperform us at every task that we do.
For the last fifteen years, Prof. Daniel Susskind has been exploring the impact of technology on work. Recent developments in AI – ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok – are astonishing, but also best thought of as a remarkable new chapter in this far longer story.
Still, the most common question people have remains–what should my children do?
What Should my Children Do? is an optimistic and hopeful guide for parents thinking about how to help their families flourish in this age of astonishing labor market shifts. It is also for anyone thinking about their career, asking how to navigate the turmoil that is underway in the working world, as well as for business and political leaders navigating the same upheaval.
With his deep knowledge of AI and how the world of work is changing, Prof. Susskind offers an evidence-based look at the problem and a practical path forward.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I don't know if Susskind knows how to write a bad book. Maybe he does, but this was another excellent contribution to his body of work.
The book answers the titular question that he was asked often enough that he felt it merited its own volume: What should my children do? when it comes to AI. He answers the question with a depth, prose, and broad lens that characterizes his work. The book is for caregivers to help their children, but his book could be read by just about anyone. The latter chapters have a wider relevance, but the earlier chapters are also useful. Don't be fooled by the way it sounds like it is just for parents and caregivers.
Along the way to an answer to the title, Susskind notes the tension between the known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns of AI. It's a discomfort that has given risen to occupations and expertise that amount to little more than punditry and speculation. He charts readers on a course through the uncertainty with a wealth of humility. In this sense, the book is as much a helpful answer as it is an understated framework for getting comfortable with the discomfort of the technologically progressing present.
Susskind addresses some philosophical and "big picture" questions of caregiving, intimacy, and generational knowledge transfer. I was given a lot of food for thought in his description of how character and ethics form from a generational notion of what a teachable good life means, where AI disrupts our ability to know what useful advice is for the next generation with AI being such a civilization-changing technological disruptor.
Some of the additional questions he answers with the book: How do we understand what skills will be most and least relevant in the world of work? What skills has technology already left in decline and what does this say for the skills we ought to prioritize for another generation? What are the first principles of AI that we might want to learn, rather than constantly reacting to new developments in AI technology masquerading as important skills in isolation? How can we more effectively teach about, and with AI so that whatever changes for humanity in the future is a co-constitutive shift? It's a lot of speculation even with the best information from an expert in the field of AI like Susskind, but he does an excellent job of grounding the high level details in something exceptionally useful for a variety of readers.
I could leave so many spoilers so I'm doing my best to hold back on my favourite parts. One of the parts of the book that I do want to speak about however, is the importance of learning how to focus. It's a skill we rely on but aren't taught how to manage, even as its decline has been the topic of debate and much study for a few years now. Susskind outlines the benefits of viewing this as a teachable skill (neurodivergence aside). Focus is a muscle we can work, and he provides a very helpful workout plan that parents, caregivers, and educators may find paradigm or praxis shifting. I was inspired to think about how focus as an educational imperative, rather than a symptom to manage might impact a variety of fields he references throughout the book. It wasn't just this particular topic that his book was generously inspiring on.
If you're looking for a playbook for parents in terms of what platforms are better than others, or what screens are optimal for use, or even dialogues that you could have about AI with your children, you may struggle with the book. It's a broader, more sweeping take on the AI landscape. It does offer quite a few examples of the ways he has used it himself and to enrich connecting with his children. He also suggests some curriculum use cases (which were really great and I hope educators of all kinds read this book) that I consider helpful even within my work outside of education, working at a public library delivering programs across the lifespan.
There's a quote about divinity's laughter in the face of our plans, and one of my takeaways was the consideration of its potential AI variation: humans deduce, and AI laughs. Susskind takes readers on a tour of how every single thing that we said AI couldn't or wouldn't do, it can indeed do and does. There are experts and pundits who said it couldn't be creative, that it wouldn't make photos or video, nor would it have the same reasoning capacity as humans, and that it would lack emotional intelligence. Yet it does all of these things in convincingly human ways. We can argue over the semantics of what each of these mean, but What Should My Children Do? is an exercise in humility for the discerning reader.
While reading I considered the Great Chain of Being and its long-standing view of human supremacy that, for many, justifies human dominion over nature. I got a bit of a glimpse of the ontological conflicts that the future might hold in what we consider educational priorities. Abrahamic religions that adhere to a divine hierarchical structure rely on human supremacy because human limitations at the "top" of this chain create the conditions for monotheism's perfect God to exist. AI avails religions of this framework in various ways, and would explain Pope Leo's very quick-to-emerge treatise: Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence (it is on my reading list but I haven't gotten to it yet). What would we teach the next generation of people if AI mirrors the omnipotence and omnipresence we have ascribed to a God that is widely believed to have given humans Earth to rule over, which disrupts the entitlement that many feel to do whatever is best for humans alone? I thought about Jensen's book The Myth of Human Supremacy, and how environmental sciences and Indigenous ways of knowing will become more important than ever, not just for ecological and restorative purposes. There are questions the book inspires that have no easy answer. If you're philosophically inclined, Susskind's book will give you a lot to consider, even if its contents seem more for people responsible for tiny humans.
I recommend this book, and I'm so grateful that I got the chance to read it. It'll definitely be a late-2026 must read, that's for sure!
Thank you to the publisher and author for an eARC copy of the book obtained via NetGalley.
The book answers the titular question that he was asked often enough that he felt it merited its own volume: What should my children do? when it comes to AI. He answers the question with a depth, prose, and broad lens that characterizes his work. The book is for caregivers to help their children, but his book could be read by just about anyone. The latter chapters have a wider relevance, but the earlier chapters are also useful. Don't be fooled by the way it sounds like it is just for parents and caregivers.
Along the way to an answer to the title, Susskind notes the tension between the known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns of AI. It's a discomfort that has given risen to occupations and expertise that amount to little more than punditry and speculation. He charts readers on a course through the uncertainty with a wealth of humility. In this sense, the book is as much a helpful answer as it is an understated framework for getting comfortable with the discomfort of the technologically progressing present.
Susskind addresses some philosophical and "big picture" questions of caregiving, intimacy, and generational knowledge transfer. I was given a lot of food for thought in his description of how character and ethics form from a generational notion of what a teachable good life means, where AI disrupts our ability to know what useful advice is for the next generation with AI being such a civilization-changing technological disruptor.
Some of the additional questions he answers with the book: How do we understand what skills will be most and least relevant in the world of work? What skills has technology already left in decline and what does this say for the skills we ought to prioritize for another generation? What are the first principles of AI that we might want to learn, rather than constantly reacting to new developments in AI technology masquerading as important skills in isolation? How can we more effectively teach about, and with AI so that whatever changes for humanity in the future is a co-constitutive shift? It's a lot of speculation even with the best information from an expert in the field of AI like Susskind, but he does an excellent job of grounding the high level details in something exceptionally useful for a variety of readers.
I could leave so many spoilers so I'm doing my best to hold back on my favourite parts. One of the parts of the book that I do want to speak about however, is the importance of learning how to focus. It's a skill we rely on but aren't taught how to manage, even as its decline has been the topic of debate and much study for a few years now. Susskind outlines the benefits of viewing this as a teachable skill (neurodivergence aside). Focus is a muscle we can work, and he provides a very helpful workout plan that parents, caregivers, and educators may find paradigm or praxis shifting. I was inspired to think about how focus as an educational imperative, rather than a symptom to manage might impact a variety of fields he references throughout the book. It wasn't just this particular topic that his book was generously inspiring on.
If you're looking for a playbook for parents in terms of what platforms are better than others, or what screens are optimal for use, or even dialogues that you could have about AI with your children, you may struggle with the book. It's a broader, more sweeping take on the AI landscape. It does offer quite a few examples of the ways he has used it himself and to enrich connecting with his children. He also suggests some curriculum use cases (which were really great and I hope educators of all kinds read this book) that I consider helpful even within my work outside of education, working at a public library delivering programs across the lifespan.
There's a quote about divinity's laughter in the face of our plans, and one of my takeaways was the consideration of its potential AI variation: humans deduce, and AI laughs. Susskind takes readers on a tour of how every single thing that we said AI couldn't or wouldn't do, it can indeed do and does. There are experts and pundits who said it couldn't be creative, that it wouldn't make photos or video, nor would it have the same reasoning capacity as humans, and that it would lack emotional intelligence. Yet it does all of these things in convincingly human ways. We can argue over the semantics of what each of these mean, but What Should My Children Do? is an exercise in humility for the discerning reader.
While reading I considered the Great Chain of Being and its long-standing view of human supremacy that, for many, justifies human dominion over nature. I got a bit of a glimpse of the ontological conflicts that the future might hold in what we consider educational priorities. Abrahamic religions that adhere to a divine hierarchical structure rely on human supremacy because human limitations at the "top" of this chain create the conditions for monotheism's perfect God to exist. AI avails religions of this framework in various ways, and would explain Pope Leo's very quick-to-emerge treatise: Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence (it is on my reading list but I haven't gotten to it yet). What would we teach the next generation of people if AI mirrors the omnipotence and omnipresence we have ascribed to a God that is widely believed to have given humans Earth to rule over, which disrupts the entitlement that many feel to do whatever is best for humans alone? I thought about Jensen's book The Myth of Human Supremacy, and how environmental sciences and Indigenous ways of knowing will become more important than ever, not just for ecological and restorative purposes. There are questions the book inspires that have no easy answer. If you're philosophically inclined, Susskind's book will give you a lot to consider, even if its contents seem more for people responsible for tiny humans.
I recommend this book, and I'm so grateful that I got the chance to read it. It'll definitely be a late-2026 must read, that's for sure!
Thank you to the publisher and author for an eARC copy of the book obtained via NetGalley.
September 20, 2026
A timely and thought-provoking book. Daniel explores how AI will reshape the future of work and challenges long-held assumptions about education, careers and job security. Crucially, he considers learning not only at school but throughout adulthood, making a compelling case for seriously rethinking education and lifelong learning. Particularly relevant for those working in education, it raises important questions about how we prepare people not simply to work, but to flourish in the age of AI.
September 20, 2026
teach both, test both
This is the core premise of this book, extending the experience of the arrival of the calculator last century. Thought provoking and entirely accurate. Must read for teenagers and their parents alike.
This is the core premise of this book, extending the experience of the arrival of the calculator last century. Thought provoking and entirely accurate. Must read for teenagers and their parents alike.
Review of advance copy
Thought provoking and useful.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews