American teenagers believe addressing the potential risks of artificial intelligence should be a top priority for lawmakers, according to a new poll that provides the first in-depth look into young people's concerns about the technology. The poll, carried out by youth-led advocacy group the Center for Youth and AI and polling organization YouGov, and shared exclusively with TIME, reveals a level of concern that rivals long standing issues like social inequality and climate change. The poll of 1,017 U.S. teens aged 13 to 18 was carried out in late July and early August, and found that 80% of respondents believed it was "extremely" or "somewhat" important for lawmakers to address the risks posed by AI, falling just below healthcare access and affordability in terms of issues they said were a top priority. That surpassed social inequality (78%) and climate change (77%). Although the sample size is fairly small, it gives an insight into how young people are thinking about technology, which has often been embedded in their lives from an early age.

It's been a busy year for Encode Justice, an international group of grassroots activists pushing for ethical uses of artificial intelligence. There have been legislators to lobby, online seminars to hold, and meetings to attend, all in hopes of educating others about the harms of facial-recognition technology. It would be a lot for any activist group to fit into the workday; most of the team behind Encode Justice have had to cram it all in around high school. That's because the group was created and is run almost entirely by high schoolers. Its founder and president, Sneha Revanur, is a 16-year-old high-school senior in San Jose, California and at least one of the members of the leadership team isn't old enough to get a driver's license.