New York City Bans AI from Elementary Schools

it seems incredibly short sighted to bar students from something that exists in the world, that they will need to interact with and be aware of in the future.

also, LLMs are great at summarizing knowledge, which is likely a better fit for earlier stages of education, rather than later forms, to instill some sense of interest.

are students actually having issues discerning real people from LLMs in NYC? did they explore that before coming up with this program or is this signaling? the article is scant on these details, which is unfortunate.

"The new mandate also includes restrictions on the use of individual laptops and tablets. Students in preschool through second grade will no longer be able to use individual devices at all, while older elementary school students will face time limits of 30 to 45 minutes a day. But exceptions will reportedly be made for students who are actively learning English or are living with disabilities, as well as for the use of coding software."

without citing evidence that does anything at all, that comes across as luddite levels of hope that putting kids in information jail will do something special that'll make them "better" somehow.

pretty much anyone on this forum who is older than 30 should remember these dumb jails that did nothing but frustrate students when they attempted to get access to information.

i was writing "code" when i was in 4th grade >30 years ago, and if i had these restrictions in school, relative to what exists today, i wouldn't have been.

you cannot fight the future this way.