Matt Poyle logs into a video meeting with a dozen students eager to learn how to use AI technology in everyday life.
Today's topic? "Free things to do in Northeast Ohio with a family of four," he tells the students — and they're off to find results using platforms such as ChatGPT.
Poyle teaches the monthly workshops as the program manager of NeoLaunchnet at Lorain County Community College in Elyria.
The free virtual sessions are broadcast to local libraries, as well as outreach centers in Lorain, North Ridgeville and Wellington.
The goal, he says, is to help residents overcome fears of AI taking their jobs or being used for nefarious purposes such as creating fake images.
"I think that a lot of it is demystifying A.I.," Poyle says after class. "It is a newer technology and we can kind of meet you where you are, whether you've used it for three years now or it's gonna be your first day.”
Other sessions included using AI software to make art, manage money and stay safe online.
One past participant in Poyle’s A.I. learning sessions is Michele Razdrh, who works as a health and life insurance agent. She also volunteers at area senior centers.
On a recent weekday, she’s using voice to text to prompt ChatGPT for help planning a class at a senior center. With the click of a mouse on her laptop, 25 activities appear on the screen.
How long it would to come up with these ideas otherwise?
"Probably months," says Razdrh with a laugh. "Every one of these categories are something different that I'd have to actually look up and try to come up with something."
Fears are justified
But many are concerned about AI devaluing art created by actual people — or even taking away jobs from truck drivers, computer coders and lots of others.
And their fears are not unfounded. Over the past 20 years, 27,000 job cuts in the U.S. have been directly linked to the use of AI. And the pace of those cuts is likely to increase as AI gets more sophisticated.
According to a recent report, in the first seven months of 2025, rising use of AI technology by private employers accounted for more than 10,000 job cuts — most in tech and entry level positions.
Vipin Chaudhary is chair of the Computer and Data Sciences Department at Case Western Reserve University and an Investigator with the National Science Foundation’s AI Research Institute.
"I think it's reasonable to have some fear," said Chaudhary. "Not all jobs are going to continue the way they are."
He said a lot of repetitive jobs, including in manufacturing, have already been overtaken by AI. And now, automation in the tech and health sectors threatens some white-collar work, too.
But Chaudhary said there’s no going back in time, and workers who embrace the technology and understand it will be better equipped for the future.
"I think it is going to open up different kinds of jobs and doors," said Chaudhary. "So I think being adaptive, uh, learning more of the foundations within your field is more important today than it was before."
Let the kids play
Being adaptive and learning about AI is part of what's being taught to the next generation — in another workshop at Lorain County Community College.
The two-day Prompt and Play Camp for kids is put on by the Stem Discovery Institute and Fab lab there. The room bustles with a dozen or so middle schoolers playing with board games they created in a day and a half using ChatGPT.
One game is an underwater sea adventure with wooden player pieces and colorful draw cards. Another features a game board showing a mythical land.
Students go home with 3D printed game pieces and cards that might make Milton Bradley proud.
Kate Duncan is a camper playing a game she helped create, with squid and sea creature game pieces.
"We got back onto ChatGPT to make all the cards and the rules," says Duncan. "We still have to get the spiral that you need after you fight the squid."
Students are using AI already, according to Poyle. This is just another way for the school to help demystify the uncertainty around A.I, he said.
"They've been able to develop their critical thinking using AI," says Poyle. "I made this today and it’s a real tangible product."
Up next, the college plans to practice what it preaches — incorporating more AI learning into other areas of its curriculum, in hopes of whittling away fears of technology one class at a time.
