Some of them had no idea.
‘I was a bit shocked, shocked and disappointed’ Craig Garrett told BI.
At a school meeting, teachers revealed the extent of AI use in his daughter’s class. It was there that Garrett discovered his 5-year-old talking to what he described as an AI chatbot every day.
That meeting “radicalized” many of the parents in the room, Garrett said.
It led him to join AIM, a coalition of New York City parents just getting started has prompted Mayor Zohran Mamdani to impose a one-year AI moratorium for the city’s primary and secondary schools.
But AIM was not the only group to lobby Mamdani. Some parents wants AI in the classroom.
Proponents see an advantage, not a shortcut.
Advocates say early exposure increases AI literacy for a working world increasingly intertwined with the technology. A world, as the White House envisionswhere an ever-patient humanoid educator named Plato awaits you.
Good for the career perhaps. But critics worry that this is the case bad for the brain.
A neuroscientist and associate professor at Rutgers University told BI that research shows AI tools can prevent young children from developing their own problem-solving skills.
In other words, they outsource skills that they never acquired themselves.
The question is not whether children should come into contact with AI. They almost certainly will. The question is whether classrooms should implement it before children have learned without thinking.
We’ve collected some of the sharpest technical and business commentary from both sides. Read them here.
