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No AI until high school: NYC mayor Mamdani imposes 1 year ban on AI for schools through 8th grade (www.nyc.gov)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1377962/no-ai-until-high-school-nyc-schools-announce-major-classroom-technology-overhaul

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and Schools Chancellor Kamar H. Samuels today announced a moratorium on student-facing generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) use in schools, alongside a new screen time policy, a decision that will impact nearly 600,000 public school students, or two-thirds of the system’s total enrollment. The policy establishes a one-year moratorium, effective in the 2026-2027 school year, on student-facing generative AI for children in 2-K through 8th grade. It also introduces twice-yearly AI critical thinking modules for high schoolers, limited AI pilots for a small number of high school classrooms and age-appropriate screen time restrictions.

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[+] -30 points 2 months ago (16 children)

TBD. I'm no fan of AI or especially the companies. But every kid learns differently and our schools are not built for some kids' learning styles. AI can customize for every single student.

I feel like the ones that could benefit most from AI teachers are the ones in these huge classroom where the teachers can't give individual help. And AI would be perfect for these grades as the topics are much more basic and easier for AI to get right.

Anyway, I don't think this'll be a popular comment, but I also don't think it's wrong.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Can't wait for the AI to confidently teach kids stuff like this.

    Oh wait, that's already happening

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  • [–] 21 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    I can confidently say that if we had tablets or laptops in school before high school, we'd absolutely fuck off with them and mess around. Even back then when we'd go to the computer lab, a lot of people would just fuck around rather than play Type to Learn lol

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  • [+] -10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Not sure what your point is as my comment is about students and learning from AI. Not about tablets and laptops.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    And how do you think AI is interacted with? On what device?

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  • [+] -9 points 2 months ago

    Gotcha so you're not disagreeing with any of the points I actually made about how AI can help individualize learning. Just that kids shouldn't be on computers or tablets in school.

    Well, I don't have anything to say about that as my kid has a chromebook and outside or using it for certain homework assignments, I don't think he uses it to learn. If he had some AI software on there designed for him to learn, I bet he'd get much more use out of it.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    “… every kid learns differently…” ai not help this. If need 1:1 ai no good. Use internet search self learn.

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  • [–] -2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    If internet searching and self learning matches you learning style, great for you.

    Personally, I have used AI for many development projects and have learned way more than I was ever able to by googling. Many times I'd take answers from stack exchange and ask AI wtf it meant and it would break it down in a way I could understand.

    Now apply this to middle school math and a student that just doesn't learn math like other kids.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    And you sound like an adult who has already learned how to do development. AI in schools makes kids lazy. Imagine if you had an application that answered every question for you, sometimes right and many times incorrect, I would be willing to bet you would not have learned how to do development. I think you are talking about teachers using AI to develop curriculum, which is a great use, just like how you use it for dev.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago

    There's a difference between handing kids chat gpt and telling them to learn and giving them ai tools designed around teaching children specific topics.

    My kid has to do math problems on a website each week. When he doesn't understand the problem he can click a help button that breaks the problem down for him. When he doesn't understand that, he'll ask his teacher who doesn't have time to break things down even further for him or loses patience with him when he still doesn't get it. So he goes on without understanding. A built in AI could easily figure out what it is he doesn't understand and then teach him that and work back to the problem he's working on.

    I think the "wait a year" approach is probably a good one to ensure they are giving the kids the right kind of AI. But a blanket "AI bad" statement I disagree with. I think kids that have access to these kinds of tools will end up better off than those without.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Expecting "individualized" education from a technology known for being abused in sloppy ways, for being non-deterministic to the point it's producing NSFL content if it doesn't have safeguards, and that hallucinates inaccurate information while being controlled by the most powerful sociopaths in the world then...

    Yeah. That's a reasonable expectation and not unsafe at all my dude. /s

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