纽约禁止六十万中小学生在校用 AI：反对的人说，这还不够

On September the second, New York did something a lot of people did not see coming.

New York has the largest school system in America.

Inside that system there are six hundred thousand primary and middle school students.

Starting this month, those six hundred thousand students may not use AI at school.

It is the biggest move of its kind in America so far.

Let's start with why this is such a big deal.

Over the last two years, AI in schools has grown and grown.

Some AI teaches children to read.

Some AI is a friend you can chat with — whatever a child wants to say, they say it to the machine.

And when a student is doing homework, they can just ask AI.

AI gives them the answer, and writes it up for them too.

A lot of companies say: this is the school of the future, it is coming whether you like it or not.

Now New York says: that is not how we see it.

The mayor of New York said one line that many people remembered.

He said: those companies want us to believe that small children learning with AI is both inevitable and necessary.

He said: we do not see it that way.

So what did New York actually do?

First, the AI tools the schools handed to students have all been switched off.

One reading-tutor AI had been in use for a long time; that has stopped too.

Second, AI that chats with students is not allowed on school computers at all.

Third, the time students spend looking at screens has to come down.

Eight to ten-year-olds: thirty minutes a day.

Eleven to thirteen-year-olds: forty-five minutes a day.

Younger children than that, even less.

And here is the part that is interesting.

Students may not use it, but teachers may.

What do teachers use AI for?

Teachers use AI to plan lessons and to make the handouts students will read.

What the students see is still what the teacher made.

Why is it fine for the teacher and not for the student?

New York's thinking runs like this.

A teacher already knows how to think; AI just does the busywork faster.

A student is still learning how to think.

When you are small, the most important thing is doing the thinking yourself.

If AI finishes a seven-year-old's homework, what has the seven-year-old learned?

Not every student is shut out.

Some students have disabilities, and AI helps them speak and helps them read.

Those students may use it.

Some students have just arrived in America and cannot speak English yet, and AI helps them.

Those students may use it too.

And older students studying computing, who may work in it one day, may use it as well.

New York says: this year, we are going to take a proper look.

Every piece of technology in the schools gets reviewed.

Anything students do not genuinely need gets dropped.

In a year, they will decide the next step.

And there is a last thing, which may not be what you expect.

What do the people who object actually say?

They say: one year is too short.

They say it is bad that high schools are still using AI at all.

What they want is longer, and stricter.

Think about it: when you were small, homework was hard.

You thought about it for a long time before you worked it out.

If back then there had been something that gave you the answer the moment you asked, would you still have done the thinking?