Philosophy in the Age of AI: How Technology Shapes Identity, Ethics, and the Future for Students

I never had a map. I didn’t even feel I was allowed to have a map. What I had was a classroom of stuffed animals, a head full of questions, and a strange, stubborn feeling that I was meant to search for something more. While other kids imagined flying into space or becoming pop stars, I found joy in chalkboards, stories, and scribbled notes. The moment I learned something new, I had to share it. My teddy bears heard about Greek myths before my classmates did. In hindsight, I wasn’t just pretending to be a teacher—I was already becoming one. No one in my family had followed that path. My parents hadn’t finished elementary school, and my sister was the first to finish high school. There were no bookshelves at home, no professors at dinner. So where did that hunger for learning come from? I don’t know. But sometimes, I wonder if there’s a quiet force inside each of us—a blueprint of sorts—guiding us toward a life we haven't yet lived, but somehow already belong to. Like a flower that blooms exactly as it was meant to, even between cracks in the pavement, our nature knows the shape it wants to become. And life, in all its mess and mystery, offers us the light and storm to grow into it. All we need to do is resist the urge to silence ourselves out of fear that we won’t fit into the mold society expects of us.

The Long Road to Becoming

What we become often begins with what we’re not. I wasn’t confident. I wasn’t particularly brave. I was introverted, observant, sometimes painfully shy. And yet, I was curious—insatiably so. That curiosity carried me from Rome to Paris, for my PhD, and eventually across an ocean to California for a job. I was chasing something I couldn’t quite name—freedom, perhaps, or belonging, or simply a chance to grow beyond the limits of where I’d started. But change never comes neatly. When I arrived in the U.S., I felt like a ghost of myself. My English faltered. People were kind, but distant. I struggled to feel seen. The image people had of "Italians" didn’t fit me at all. I wasn’t loud. I wasn’t late. I was quiet, punctual, introspective. And in trying to be understood, I felt increasingly invisible. In the early years, I resented this cultural mismatch. Over time, though, I began to understand it. People weren’t trying to exclude me—they were trying to relate. Stereotypes, after all, are lazy shortcuts we use when we don’t know how to sit with someone’s full humanity. Still, it takes something from you—to be reduced to a caricature when you're trying so hard to be real.

The Philosophy of Home

I’ve spent years thinking about what it means to belong. Is home a place? A feeling? A language? A person? For a long time, I thought I had to return to find home again. Return to my language. My country. My past. But every time I went back, something felt missing—like the version of myself I was becoming didn’t fit there anymore.Instead, I began to feel at home in my questions. In my work. In the strange, beautiful light of California. The more I gave space to the parts of me that didn’t belong anywhere, the more I felt a sense of rootedness that wasn’t tied to geography at all. Some people are born into homes that welcome them completely. Others, like me, build our home piece by piece—through relationships, through purpose, through words. I often think of Steinbock’s and Schutz’s writings on "homeliness"—the way our environments shape how we feel about ourselves. To feel at home isn’t just to feel comfortable. It’s to feel real. Recognized. Held.

The Ethical Dilemma of a Life

I see this in my students all the time. When I ask them what they want to do after graduation, many respond with something like, “Whatever makes the most money the fastest.” I don’t judge them—this world is expensive. But I do worry. Because when we choose our path based solely on external rewards, we often lose touch with who we are. Imagine someone who dreams of painting but becomes a lawyer because that’s what their family expects. They may survive, even succeed—but at what cost? Without joy, without alignment with their true self, even success can feel like a cage. This is the ethical dilemma of vocation: do we live to meet others’ expectations, or do we dare to become what calls us from within—even if it’s harder, even if it’s lonelier? Sartre wrote that we are condemned to be free. That we are responsible for inventing ourselves through our choices. To live in good faith is to face that freedom with honesty and courage. It means saying yes to who we really are, even if the world doesn’t clap for it right away.

Living the Questions

To give myself a name—Susi, the teacher, the scholar, the mother, the writer—might sound simple now. But becoming each of these things took years of inner work, failure, and reinvention. Before I was a teacher, I was a child talking to stuffed animals. Before I was a writer, I was a foreigner struggling with her words. Before I was a mother, I was a woman unsure if she’d ever feel at home anywhere. Every identity we carry comes with a story. And that story is often full of trial, change, and unexpected beauty. Philosophy taught me that life isn’t about reaching a static self—it’s about becoming, again and again. Heraclitus said we can’t step into the same river twice. Likewise, we don’t meet the same version of ourselves twice. We’re always unfolding, especially when pain shakes us up, forcing us to grow into someone new. And sometimes, in that growth, we circle back to the earliest version of ourselves—not to repeat it, but to finally understand it.Today, I feel at home in my own skin. Choosing philosophy turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. It has led me to multiple roles I deeply love—as a teacher, a counselor, a writer. I now work across fields I never imagined I would touch: computer science, health science, law, and human rights.Each time I discovered a new version of myself, it came as an immense surprise—often on the heels of doubt, loss, or deep uncertainty. With the students I meet at California State University, East Bay—many of whom feel like they're always one step behind—I try to nurture one essential thing: the unshakable connection with their inner voice. Even when the road feels like it’s leading downhill or appears to have no clear way forward, I remind them not to abandon that quiet inner knowing—the voice that tells you who you are and who you are meant to become.Even now, new changes are waiting just around the corner, and yes, I’m scared. I don’t yet see the path clearly. But I’ve walked this terrain before. And I’ve learned that when everything seems uncertain, a new blossom often appears—right where I least expect it.

A Final Word to Those Still Searching

If you're reading this and still wondering who you are or where you’re meant to go—good. That wondering is a sign of life.You don’t need a five-year plan. You don’t need a brand. You need presence. Courage. Curiosity.You are not lost. You are becoming. And becoming takes time.Let the questions guide you. Let love and longing shape you. Let the life that wants to emerge through you have space to bloom.The world doesn’t need you to be perfect. It needs you to be real.