Akshay Ganesh is a high school senior whose work explores the intersection of philosophy, LLMs, education, and learning. He’s the founder of Deskpad, a nonprofit focused on ensuring AI adoption in classrooms preserves student thinking. He hopes to study philosophy in college with a focus on ethics and education.
What excites you about philosophy?
Philosophy is incredibly exciting to me because it really forces me to question assumptions I would otherwise leave untouched. Earlier in my life, I thought I’d want to study something STEM-adjacent in college, but after taking a philosophy summer course, I realized that the abilities to think and reason that philosophy forces you to develop are universally applicable across every field. Since then, I’ve become especially interested in the ethics of AI in classrooms, where questions about learning and autonomy are becoming increasingly difficult to answer.
What are you working on right now?
Aside from college applications, the thing I’ve been spending the most time on has been my initiative, Deskpad. I started it at the end of my sophomore year after seeing teachers at my school struggle to maintain academic integrity in the classroom with the rise of generative AI, and it’s really grown into something I’ve become proud of. We’ve built free software for teachers that allows their students to use AI in the writing process, but in a way that is fully transparent and preserves critical thinking. We’ve also moved into educational research and released a documentary on student perspectives on AI. The thing I’ve enjoyed the most, however, has definitely been the conversations I’ve had with teachers while building Deskpad.
What topic do you think is under-explored in philosophy?
I might be slightly biased, but I do believe AI and technology ethics in education is something I wish was covered more in-depth by philosophers. It is an extremely relevant issue, and many of the current stances seem to fall into broad camps of either embracing AI as an inevitable tool or resisting it as a threat to learning. I believe the most interesting philosophical questions are in between, and philosophers could definitely provide valuable insight. Some questions I’ve been wrestling with: Which parts of thinking are valuable because students do them themselves? At what point does assistance become cognitive outsourcing? What is the teacher’s role in supporting a student’s overall understanding of a topic? Especially as AI’s capabilities grow, I think these questions will become significantly more relevant, and I hope we can come to some agreement sooner rather than later.
What’s your personal philosophy?
My personal philosophy is to always listen to the little man in the back of my head. I’m a huge Seinfeld fan (my dad introduced me when I was young), and in Season 4, Episode 13, “The Pick,” Kramer asks George, “Now what does the little man inside you say? See, you gotta listen to the little man.”
In my own life, I often find that when I’m putting something off or doing something I know I’m not supposed to, the little man usually tells me. He’s almost always right, but since he’s so little, he’s really easy to ignore. Listen to the little man!
Which books have changed your life? In what ways?
The book that has left the most monumental impact on my life is When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. More than anything, I think the book made me recontextualize what makes my finite life meaningful. Kalanithi has such a beautiful way of telling his story that I often find myself coming back to the book when I feel lost. I also recommend The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, which I’d suggest as a prerequisite to When Breath Becomes Air if you haven’t read either. Be prepared for some heavy stuff, though.
If you could have a one-hour conversation with any philosopher or historical figure from any time, who would you pick and what topic would you choose?
I think I’d choose to talk to Alan Turing. I’d want to sit down with him and ask how he felt about artificial intelligence now, in all its capabilities, and whether he could have predicted all of this occurring less than a hundred years after he published “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” I’m especially curious whether he would be surprised by how socially important the imitation game became. As the Turing Test has become less central to how we evaluate AI, what would his new benchmark be for measuring an AI’s human-like capabilities? And above all, what should we, as humans, value as AI’s capabilities progress?
What advice do you wish someone had given you?
I wish someone had told me how much grit matters when I was younger. Grit is somewhat of an ambiguous term, so I’ll define it clearly as I mean it: grit is doing the hard thing you know you have to do, even when it gets incredibly difficult. I truly believe this is what separates many of the people who find the most success in their lives—they simply keep pushing through when others would stop.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest, not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form.
Jessica Castellani
Jessica Castellani had a unique high school experience attending Toledo School for the Arts, where she played in a percussion ensemble and steel drum band for six years. She earned her dual Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and religious studies from the University of Toledo. Her primary focus was “the Self” and the mystical experience of losing it. She earned her Master of Arts in philosophy from The University of Toledo as well, with a specialization in comparative philosophy, Eastern studies, and continental philosophy. She has taught World Religions and Introduction to Philosophy at The University of Toledo both in person and virtually. She is a member of the Buddhist Temple of Toledo, tutors students, and has worked in the service industry for over a decade. In her free time, she likes to spend time outside and with her pets, friends, and family.
