When or why do people feel pressure to keep AI use a secret?
This practice creates space to talk about the pressures students face around AI use and the complicated feelings that come with it. It focuses especially on moments when those pressures push students toward secrecy. By surfacing when and why people hide AI use, students discover they’re not alone in facing these tensions.
The play
Spot pressures
The dilemma
Students are hiding their AI use.
The moves
Name pressures to hide AI use and look for patterns across the group with this practice.
When to call
Early, a good warm-up for other plays.
HOW TO RUN IT
Think about when and why people keep their AI use a secret.
ALL five AI plays
- Values Bridge
- Making AI Pressures Visible
- Align on the Line
- Map a Moment
- AI to Z
RELATED RESOURCES
PODCAST · HOMEWORK + AI
CDT Joins the Search Engine Podcast to Talk Homework + AI
Beck Tench and Emily Weinstein unpack how CDT is centering youth voices in the AI + homework debate.
ARTICLE · VOX
Why Banning Kids from AI Isn’t the Answer
CDT’s Beck Tench spoke with Vox about the pressures schools face as they weigh banning AI chatbots.
VIDEO · 8 MINDSHIFTS
What Does It Look Like to Drive AI Well?
Dan Be Kim uses a driving metaphor, from road rules to turn signals, to show everyday skills for using AI with judgment and transparency.
This resource was created by the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard Graduate School of Education. It was made possible through the support of Grant 63220 from the John Templeton Foundation. It has a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Remixing is encouraged! Suggested attribution: Weinstein, E., Tench, B., Kim, D.B., Lara, E. (2025). Making AI Pressures Visible: A framework discovering pressures to use AI. Cambridge, MA, USA,: Center for Digital Thriving.
