Are kids still looking for jobs in technology?

High school today The students face an uncertain road ahead. Amnesty International He is changing What skills are valued in the labor market, and what are the funding cuts approved by the Trump administration? Scientific research stopped Across disciplines. Most careers are unlikely to look the same in 10 years, let alone 50 years. Even students are interested in it It stems Participants ask: What could my career look like, and how do I get there?

WIRED spoke with five high school seniors from across the country about their interest in STEM — and how they understand the future.

These comments have been edited for length and clarity.

This generation should be at the forefront of AI development

I have always had an interest in computer science, but my interest in artificial intelligence began in my junior year. The part that amazed me was how much it applies to our daily lives. I was able to see the emergence of ChatGPT and other LLM software, and how people were using them in my academic life. Some people may use it unethically on tests or assignments, but it can also be used to create practice problems. Being able to see how quickly it was developing in front of me was the main reason I was interested. It impacts our academic life so much that it is essential that we are at the forefront of how to develop it.

My school is a mathematics and science academy, so I had to explore independent research related to my LLM. One of the main things I worked on was how LLM can sometimes indirectly provide private data. Let’s say you ask it to code something for you that requires an API key, which is sensitive information. Since it was trained on a huge amount of data, it could have an API key in its data set, and it would give you a code, possibly including the API key. My most accomplished research project was to develop an algorithm to cut out those private parts of the data during training, to allow it to not propagate those private parts of the data during use.

Artificial Intelligence is a new field that is developing, and if we can put down roots now, we will be able to see this result as we grow older. Understanding its security is very important to me, especially considering that it is used almost blindly by everyone. What matters to me is being up front and making sure I can have a say in how my data is used.

I’m applying to undergraduate programs now, and I’m also looking for some non-traditional routes, where you can go straight into industry. Nowadays, in computer science, sometimes a degree is just a baseline, and if you have the skills, it’s not necessary. So I’m looking into other options. – Laksh Patel, 17, Willowbrook, Illinois

Access to health care starts with communities

My family, on both sides, has a long history of women with neurodegenerative diseases, especially Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. So I spent my entire childhood playing doctor, treating maternal families, taking care of them and seeing how their illnesses progressed. I became very interested in how these diseases worked, and how I could help patients like those in my family and community who were unable to access medical resources because of their income.

I’ve really developed a love for patient care, being able to help someone at such a stressful time in their life. As those female family members began to fade and disappear, I realized how quickly these diseases spread and why they were so harmful, especially without proper treatment. When I entered high school, I started oriented toward research, so that I could have a basic level of understanding to bring to college to try to start my career as soon as possible and help more people.