‘A National Conversation Waiting to Happen’
Prairie Gunnels didn’t expect a revelation when she stepped to the front of her political science class at Skidmore College last spring. But then came the prompt.
“What would a U.S. Constitution look like if it reflected Generation Z’s values?”
Her professor, Beau Breslin, had invited her to test the question in real time using ChatGPT. As Gunnels, a first-year student, watched the AI begin generating a preamble—laced with themes of justice, authenticity, and environmental urgency—something clicked.
“It wasn’t just a random output,” she recalled. “It was holding a mirror up to our generation. That’s when I realized how powerful this could be.”
What began as a classroom experiment quickly evolved into something much larger—part civic innovation, part research initiative, part collaboration between student, professor, and machine. Together, Breslin and Gunnels are now generating AI-drafted constitutional visions inspired by the values of each living generation of Americans—from the Greatest Generation to Generation Alpha.
“I’ve written about the idea of periodic constitutions before,” Breslin explains, referencing his 2021 book A Constitution for the Living, “but it occurred to me that’s sort of a one-dimensional approach. Jefferson imagined it would always be the wise elders of a polity who would write each new constitution. But there’s another way to think about generational constitutions—and that’s to literally ask each generation what theywould want in theirs.”
That insight sparked a project unlike any Breslin had undertaken before. Using ChatGPT, he and Gunnels generated full-length, 40-page constitutions reflecting the beliefs, priorities, and political values of seven living generations: the Greatest Generation, Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha.
“The constitutions are very different,” Breslin notes. “You can see it even in the preambles. The Greatest Generation’s version emphasizes duty, sacrifice, and work ethic. The Alpha Generation’s speaks of environmental justice, emotional wellness, and digital fluency. These documents offer striking portraits of what each generation believes America should be.”
A Eureka Moment
Prairie Gunnels is exploring the power of AI in writing constitutions for seven generations of Americans.
Raised in the sun-drenched sprawl of southwest Florida, Gunnels' intellectual roots trace back to two contrasting Americas. Her upbringing was shaped by the cultural currents of the South, but her academic journey took a sharp turn northward—first to Emma Willard School in Troy, then to Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs.
"I want to do social work in the juvenile prison system," she says. "To do that, I felt I needed an understanding of politics and law."
That understanding deepened in Breslin’s Introduction to American Politics course. There, she encountered a defining tension in constitutional theory: the contrast between James Madison’s vision of a lasting, stabilizing Constitution and Thomas Jefferson’s belief that each generation should craft its own. Breslin had explored this tension in depth in his writing—but it was through Prairie’s curiosity and use of AI that it came to life in a new way.
“Prairie’s moment at the keyboard was a spark,” Breslin says. “She wasn’t just using AI to spit out answers—she was exploring the soul of a generation. That’s when we realized we had something more than a teaching moment. We had a national conversation waiting to happen.”
A Five-Part Series
Their five-part series, published in The Fulcrum, aims to tell the story of these generational constitutions in digestible segments. Each month, Breslin and Gunnels are releasing a new essay comparing how the generations differ on a major constitutional theme—preambles in June, institutions in July, rights in August, amendments in September, and ratification in October.
It's not surprising that the Greatest Generation and Gen Z would express starkly contrasting priorities and values in the preambles they draft. But it's illuminating to see how ChatGPT distills them.
Forged by the Great Depression and global war, the Greatest Generation crafted a preamble centered on duty, sacrifice, personal responsibility, and national unity—echoing a deep reverence for tradition and communal bonds. Their language is solemn and self-effacing, emphasizing honor, justice, and preservation for future generations.
In stark contrast, Gen Z’s constitution emerges from a world defined by digital immersion, social justice movements, and climate crisis. Their preamble emphasizes inclusivity, sustainability, digital and civil liberties, and the affirmation of every voice.
"Where the Greatest Generation invokes a sense of obligation to uphold inherited values, Gen Z calls for transformation—of systems, structures, and assumptions—placing equity and the planet at the moral center of the constitutional project," Gunnels writes.
"Every generation has a logic behind its vision, even when those visions seem at odds. My hope is that we can spark real conversations across generational lines about what kind of Constitution a living democracy needs.”
This is the second installment of the series of articles Breslin and Gunnels are publishing on The Fulcum in reimagining the Constitution.
'AI Isn't Going Away'
For Gunnels, the project has been eye-opening—not just for its civic implications, but for what it revealed about AI's role in education.
"If students were taught how to use AI in productive ways, there would be no reason to just copy and paste," she says. "It helps you to see things differently. It helps you structure your ideas, ask better questions, and revise your thinking."
An executive order issued in April by President Donald Trump directs educators to "ensure the United States remains a global leader in this technological revolution" and "provide our nation’s youth with opportunities to cultivate the skills and understanding necessary to use and create the next generation of AI technology."
"AI is the future," Gunnels adds. "Failing to teach students how to use it effectively puts them at a disadvantage. We should be teaching fluency, not fear."
Gunnels hopes other students will use AI not to avoid civic questions, but to engage with them more deeply—and that more colleges will follow Breslin’s example in exploring what AI can contribute to democracy.
"AI isn’t going away," she says. "So let’s get good at it. Let’s use it to understand each other. To imagine new systems. To write something better than what we were handed."
Dan Forbush generated this story from interviews tramscribed and processed with Otter, NotebookLM, and ChatGPT. We describe our AI-augmented process here.
