EDITOR’S TAKE


Avoiding Blurred Lines of Reality Written by Ryan Gray | ryan@stnonline.com I


am both a big user of technology and have yet to scratch the surface of its power. I, like many of my Generation X and older peers, am enthralled on one hand by technology and a bit scared on the other.


My counterparts and I grew up in a different era. I didn’t see my first computer up close until my senior year of high school. It wasn’t until mid-way through college I actually used one. Today, I couldn’t live without my computers, plural. My latest technological foray is into AI, or more aptly


AI-enhanced software. It’s amazing how generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot help me work smarter and not harder, at least not as long. I highly recommend using the growing list of AI-enhanced pro- grams for improved and faster organization, research, data analytics and communication purposes. But I am cautiously optimistic, especially as society


awaits true machine learning, which is coming fast. It will be amazing the efficiencies AI unlocks. It already is. But with that power comes great responsibility, the very reason many in Silicon Valley warn of its misuse. More commonly than androids taking over Earth (at least so far), there’s a tendency to over-rely on AI, or any technology for that matter. It’s hard not to be awe-struck. We already see some incredible efficiency and safety enhancements from AI at the school bus Danger Zone, which we read about in this month’s magazine, com- bined with the more mundane, yet highly effective and common-sense advances like extended stop arms, cross- ing gates, and more brightly illuminated school buses and signage. But AI is learning, as we also learn this month about video, and it requires humans to ensure accuracy. Let’s also consider parent-facing apps. While not


AI yet, student transporters push notifications on the real-time location of school buses and their expected arrival times. One of the benefits student transporters have discovered with apps is the reduction in the num- ber of phone calls they must answer from angry parents asking, “Where’s my kid’s school bus?” But these apps are not always 100 percent correct. True, we all must learn to use AI to remain relevant in the professional world. Much to my chagrin, a recent Pew Research survey found that journalists along with


12 School Transportation News • MAY 2025


cashiers and factory professions are the professions most likely to vanish in the next 20 years because of AI. Teach- ers, and student transporters who are every bit educators, are thought to be more protected in the job market. But in embracing these solutions, I challenge that we


all must resist the temptation to allow technology to completely do our jobs for us. We don’t want school buses driving themselves, and we also don’t want to lose open communication with our co-workers or the students and parents the industry serves. I was reminded recently about the importance of


communication while reading a story about parents in Canada, who were up in arms when a school bus driver drove off with their children rather than letting them off at their stop. Regardless of the bus driver’s reasoning, what struck me was the inability or rather refusal of the school district to talk to the parents, acknowledge their anger and share why the incident occurred in the first place. You can have all the technology imaginable, but


without communication the social contract between educators and parents becomes irreparably broken. Personally, I can’t wait to bypass the AI agent and get


to a live person when calling customer service. There is a certain security in talking to a real person on the other end of the line. But even those lines are now blurred, as it took me several minutes on a recent call to realize the “person” I was having a conversation with wasn’t real but AI. It’s mind blowing the breakneck speed of technology


adoption in society and student transportation. Student transporters need to harness the power of AI and tech- nology to do their jobs better, more efficiently and safer. But they also cannot lose sight of the human aspect because that is what the industry is built upon: Trans- porting safely and efficiently little human beings from home to school and home again. Those little humans have bigger human parents who


love them dearly and want what’s best for them. And that necessitates real dialogue, no matter how painful that conversations can be, from the adults charged with their children’s well-being every school day. ●


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