The (over)use of AI

Juan | Jan 18, 2026Jan 16, 2026

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

• discuss AI hype, ethics and impact on business;
• practise phrases for talking about AI hype;
• watch part of a video about AI and mass layoffs.

In this lesson, students reflect on how AI can be beneficial for businesses, read a description of an AI-featured item and share their opinions and experiences. They watch part of a video (01:36 to 03:40) about AI washing, discuss AI’s impact on jobs and layoffs and talk about the ethical issues around AI. Students also explore phrases related to hype (e.g. painting a rosy picture of, lived up to the hype, riding the wave of) and indicate to what extent they agree or disagree with comments, as well as evaluate AI hype across different areas.

WARM-UP AND VIDEO

This lesson focuses on talking about AI hype and starts with a warm-up. Students look at different businesses (e.g. furniture manufacturer, supermarket and software development company). They say whether they think AI might be helpful for them. Students provide examples to justify their viewpoint. After that, they read the description of an AI fridge and discuss questions about their opinions and experiences related to AI-featured products. Moving on, students debate what they think ‘AI washing’ is. They then watch the first part of a video about it and check their ideas. Next, students watch the second part of the video and answer questions about AI’s impact on jobs and recent layoffs. Following that, they discuss the ethical risks and implications of AI washing.

VOCABULARY AND DISCUSSION

In this part of the lesson, students match the halves of sentences about the controversies and risks of AI washing. They then explain the meaning of phrases for talking about AI hype (e.g. blown out of proportion, gloss over, over-egg the pudding) in the sentences. Moving on, students choose four comments from the previous task and say to what extent they agree or disagree with them. Afterwards, they think about applications of AI in different areas (e.g. AI in healthcare, AI customer support chatbots, AI recruitment tools). Students say whether they think the hype around AI in each of them is justified or not. They use the target phrases from the lesson. 

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students choose categories (e.g. social media, video games, audio players) and write sentences about ideas that did or didn’t live up to the hype. They use phrases for talking about hype. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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