> I am among the oldest on our team and also the most in tune with AI.
Congratulations. But you completely missed my point. I didn't say old people can't be in tune with AI.
> I see AI-native as those who have embraced it
That's not what the word "native" means. In the human language situation I referred to, it's about the language you learned first. It's not a synonym of proficient or fluent. If you learned to code first without AI tools, you are not AI-native by any definition I would understand, no matter how good at using AI you may be.
It's not just "English-native" that makes me think they have this meaning in mind. It's also the term "digital native" that gets thrown around a lot and is absolutely about how old you are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_native
I think this is just semantic drift (though I am broadly sympathetic to “boo semantic drift”). I see this business use of the term as treating the “mind attuned to being immersed in” and “habitually, automatically reaches for” sub-meanings as the relevant ones, which is (almost as you say, but skew) not quite the same thing as “proficient when the ability is actively engaged”. The more you're trying to navigate a dynamic environment rather than hiring for tasks well-defined in advance, the more that distinction matters in practice.