AI Thinking.
First principles for any AI, today and tomorrow.
A briefing for parents and educators
We teach grades 6 through 12 to think about AI from first principles, so they can effectively use any AI, today or in the future, without losing their own thinking along the way.
Using AI tools isn't thinking.
Most AI workshops have students make a poster, a presentation, a song with AI.
In this mode the child is no better at thinking than before.
By graduation, three things will be true.
01 · Tools
AI itself keeps changing.
The model your students will use in five years doesn't exist yet. A workshop built around today's tools is obsolete by graduation.
02 · Default
AI use will be assumed.
Teachers and employers won't ask whether AI was involved. They will ask what the student added on top.
03 · Edge
The thinking is the edge.
When the tools are equal and the use is universal, the student's own judgment is the only differentiator left.
The students winning at AI think about it from first principles.
Most workshops show students what AI does. We show them why, because the why is what transfers from one model to the next.
Why does AI agree with you when you are wrong?
Why does AI invent things confidently?
Why does AI output always sound like AI?
Why does a long conversation get worse over time?
AI Thinking.
Understand the why, and you can direct any AI well. That understanding outlasts every tool.
The four levels of AI Thinking.
The workshop and 90-day plan are designed to move them up a few levels.
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Level 1
Quoter.
Copies AI output and submits it as their own. The shortcut. Looks easy. Teaches nothing.
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Level 2
Curator.
Knows which AI is best for which job. Writing one. Research another. Picture-making another. Picks the right tool every time.
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Level 3
Author.
Takes what AI gives and makes it theirs. Layers their voice, taste, and judgment. The work sounds like them, not the machine.
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Level 4
Orchestrator.
Runs many AIs together. Picks the best from each. Turns common tasks into Agentic Skills. Makes something only they could make.
Quoter → Curator → Author → Orchestrator
The fifteen habits of AI Thinking.
Durable principles. True of AI in 2020, true today, true of whichever model ships in 2030.
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01 · Frame
Learn for the AI of tomorrow.
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02 · Frame
It is a communication problem.
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03 · Frame
Three moves, on repeat.
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04 · Choose
Pick the right AI for the task.
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05 · Communicate
Frame the conversation.
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06 · Communicate
Examples beat instructions.
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07 · Communicate
Ask AI to ask you questions.
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08 · Recursion
Ask AI for help with AI.
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09 · Evaluate
Iteration is everything.
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10 · Evaluate
Don't take the quick win.
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11 · Evaluate
Never trust one machine.
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12 · Evaluate
Always humanise the output.
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13 · Edge
Conviction. Art. Sense. Judgment.
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14 · Long game
Sessions become your playbook.
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15 · Mental model
Every task is one of three things.
Format at a glance.
Length
60 minutes
One session.
Audience
Grades 6 to 12
25 or fewer students per session.
After
90-day plan
Pair partner, Skill library, Showcase Day.
What students leave with.
01
Their own Agentic Skill.
A personal AI helper that does a task they care about, the way they like it done. Older students who code build a Chrome extension instead.
02
Every classmate's Skills, too.
Each student leaves with the cohort's whole library of Agentic Skills, installable by all.
03
A pair partner.
One classmate, committed to the same 90-day plan. Weekly check-ins.
04
The AI Thinker's Cheat Sheet.
All fifteen habits, on one page.
The 90-day plan ends with
Week 12.Showcase Day.
The cohort comes back together to demo what they built and vote the most valuable Agentic Skill of the season.
Shalin Shodhan
20 years in games & film.
- Pixar Animation Studios 6 feature films · 3 Academy Awards
- Electronic Arts – Spore BAFTA Award for Technical Achievement
- Lumosity Principal Game Developer
- Masala Games – Founder Detective Dotson · Word Mess (#1 in 21 countries)
- Carnegie Mellon University MET – Entertainment Technology
From a Quoter of AI to an AI Thinker: with the judgment to choose the right AI, use it when it helps, skip it when it doesn't, and let their own voice carry the work.
That is what one workshop, fifteen habits, and a 90-day plan are built for.
AI Thinking.
First principles for any AI, today and tomorrow.
shalin@masalagames.com