11 ms·

Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

823 points by ilreb 4mo ago

jenthoven 4mo ago
Surprised to read this as Norway also has Sikt AI for schools, where teachers can monitor how AI systems are used. Seems like it has both embraced AI and banned it.
- embedding-shape 4mo ago
  > Seems like it has both embraced AI and banned it. Indeed, seemingly they done so by age/educational progression: > Pupils from first through seventh grade, aged 6 to 13, should as a general rule not be using AI, while those in lower secondary school, aged 14 to 16, can cautiously adopt tools under teachers' supervision, the government said. In upper secondary education, from ages 17 to 19, students should learn to use AI appropriately so that they are prepared for further education and work, it added.
- wwweston 4mo ago
  I wonder if the struggle is really comprehending thoughtful selective adoption. Schools are the place where the product is a more fully developed person. There's no LLM shortcut for generating that. There are many ways you could use LLMs that would discourage it. There may be some that can encourage it. Personally, I can see aggressively keeping kids away from LLMs until they've learned effort, living in tension/frustration, the pleasure of breaking through to discovery, trust evaluation, hypothesis/test cycles, and good socratic dialogue from the learner's side. It may be possible at intermediate phases to prime some models to help with this process.
  - elasticeel 4mo ago
    Very well said. As someone who taught for 6 years it's hard enough to just stay on top of lesson planning, let alone opens my curriculum to incorporate a tool (LLMs) which I'm personally figuring out for my own use. LLMs add the most utility to people who understand process and what a good result looks and feels like. To a novice they can't stunt the learning of this.
petcat 4mo ago
I wonder if at some point we will look back on stuff like this as back in the 1990s schools banning internet research and search engines. Obviously that seems ridiculous now, but the internet was big and scary back then too.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
  Those bans were implemented without evidence. We have evidence AI exposure reduces learning and cognition. There are probably situations where it enhances it. But we haven’t delineated those yet, and so shouldn’t be rolling out a half-baked system more likely to hurt than to help.
  - petcat 4mo ago
    what is the evidence
    - wieiw 4mo ago
      [flagged]
    - AndrewDucker 4mo ago
      https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01947-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01947-1
      - deleted 4mo ago
        [deleted]
- Retric 4mo ago
  Few schools allow unrestricted internet access these days. The general question here is risks vs rewards and with any new technology both are unknown making caution perfectly reasonable be that internet searches or anything else. So sure in 30 years the policy will look different, but that doesn’t mean they are making the wrong decision.
- 4mo ago
iamflimflam1 4mo ago
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FloorEgg 4mo ago
Wouldn't it matter a lot how AI is being used? I would assume if children are allowed to use AI without rails as a shortcut it will undermine their learning, and it's used for feedback and as a patient tutor it would accelerate their learning? It seems like the problem is that they don't have the science and tooling to use it constructively at scale, so the desperate solution is to ban it outright until a scalable constructive approach is understood? The article doesn't explain any of this directly... It's frustrating to me when bold statements are directed at "AI" holistically and vaguely, completely ignoring any nuance. There is a massive gap between letting elementary students free reign use chatGPT 3.5 (hallucinations and all) to do whatever, vs using a very guard-railed pedagogically optimized app powered by a SOTA model to support students in a specific way that accelerates good outcomes. Most respectful interpretation is that the leaders know this and have a plan to figure it out, but for some reason it's not making it's way into this article. Is the absence representative of the truth of the situation, or some editors choice to pile on to a holistic anti-ai narrative?
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
  > it's used for feedback and as a patient tutor it would accelerate their learning? We have mounting evidence AI hurts learning and cognition in many circumstances. I have not yet seen similar-quality evidence for it helping. Given that balance, restricting AI in education in the general population (while studying how to best deploy it) seems prudent. Especially given the Norwegian approach, which gradually introduces AI as kids get older.
  - bpodgursky 4mo ago
    AI makes me worse at programming but helps me learn things much more quickly than reading textbooks. Both can be true.
    - JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
      > but helps me learn things much more quickly than reading textbooks Have you tested this against an external metric of competence? The research seems to show that AI is great at making you feel you know something. But I think the studies looking at language learning found those using AI extensively tested below peers using traditional methods.
morkalork 4mo ago
Social media execs are already known for keeping their children off their platforms* and even phones so my question is: Do the leading ML/AI people let their children interact with LLMs yes or no? [*] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/13/youtubes-ceo-is-latest-tech-boss-limiting-his-kids-social-media-use.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/13/youtubes-ceo-is-latest-tech-...
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
  Broadly speaking, the wealthier the parents the more restrictive device is in general in the household. This used to be a tech/non-tech line. It shifted to class sometime over the last ten years. The iPad kids are probably getting served slop. The AI-employed parents don’t have to directly police AI exposure because their kids’ device use is already controlled; at school, at extra-curriculars and at home.
  - pawelmurias 4mo ago
    The question is do the allow them to use their laptops to access llms. Like I assume before ai they where not allowing the kids to fry their brains doom scrolling but would allow programming. They weren't blocking all tech as they aren't raising subsistence farmers.
    - JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
      > I assume before ai they where not allowing the kids to fry their brains doom scrolling but would allow programming Young kids don’t need to learn programming. They need to learn math, reading, spatial reasoning and social skills. (Among other things.) The kids who were being taught Java in elementary school ten years ago aren’t particularly better off for it.
    - morkalork 4mo ago
      I figure they let them use Wikipedia, google etc. before though so I am curious where the line exists now.
- 4mo ago
replwoacause 4mo ago
Good, wholeheartedly agree with this. Too bad US legislators are impotent.
- tadfisher 4mo ago
  US legislators have almost no say in how schools are run. The DoE is a husk, and states call the shots. In my state of Oregon, you will have wildly different curricula and standards depending on your district, because there's almost no state oversight either.
  - LastTrain 4mo ago
    Yes, that is what impotent means.
  - solid_fuel 4mo ago
    They made a choice - US legislators effectively gave up their control of how schools are run when the conservative coalition allowed the trump administration to dismantle the DoE without congressional approval. Congress itself could legally retain control of education, but if congress refuses to assert that power then it is meaningless. The end goal is to dismantle public education and route public money to religious and private schools.
    - gpt5 4mo ago
      No - US always delegated education policy decision locally. Not just the state level, but the local district has the most amount of control. Nothing material here has changed in the last few years.
      - solid_fuel 4mo ago
        > Nothing material here has changed in the last few years. Bald faced lies from you, nothing surprising here. I could take the time in explaining how state and federal responsibilities are divided, I could go through the history of the Department of Education and how funding for schools works in the US. I could point to dozens of examples of you being wrong from any decade in the last century, from de-segregation to "no child left behind". But there's no point, since you're just a troll and not here for a real discussion. No one interested in a sincere exchange of ideas would start from such a stupid premise. So you can go ahead and look through my comment history all you want, and respond all you want, but it'll just make you mad and get you flagged. You would be better served by finding a large rock to kick.
bko 4mo ago
Im confused, are there tasks given to 6 to 13 year old to use AI? In the classroom, are they just throwing gpt in front of them? Is that the modern equivalent of watching a vhs? Or do they have homework to vibe code something or given some prompts to ask at home and save somewhere? Serious question, what does this mean?
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- vorticalbox 4mo ago
  Well one can no longer search for information in the big search engines without it just giving you the answer. This ruins “search and topic and write about it”
  - setopt 4mo ago
    I guess Norwegian schools will have to use smaller / alternative search engines now?
    - pesus 4mo ago
      Or books.
      - estetlinus 4mo ago
        Yes, please.
    - throwaway2037 4mo ago
      Or they can disable "AI" from the search results to only get "traditional" search results.
- sisve 4mo ago
  There where no clear rules on the matter. Now the PM has given some guidance to schools so they know when they should use it and not. If there are no guidance teachers and schools can do what they want and some teachers would probably go to far to early
baq 4mo ago
AI used to write homework should be banned. AI in 1:1 tutor mode with proper hardware (live scanning pen and paper), harness and guardrails should be wildly successful (in terms of education outcomes) especially in elementary school.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
  > AI in 1:1 tutor mode with proper hardware, harness and guardrails should be wildly successful I’m open to the idea! Show me the evidence. Then we can roll it out to our kids.
  - baq 4mo ago
    Glad you’re asking. https://cepr.org/publications/dp21577 https://cepr.org/publications/dp21577
    - YawningAngel 4mo ago
      >AI users who maintain similar homework completion time as non-AI users experience small learning losses. Seems like there's no benefit even if it's used "correctly"?
    - JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
      “AI adoption raises homework scores by 18% and reduces completion time by 30%, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months. High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24%, with the full penalty emerging only after about two years.” Yup. Short-term metrics juice. Actual comprehension and cognition falls. This seems to be the case across the board, including with adults. I’m genuinely optimistic that there is a way to make AI helpful in education. I just don’t think we’ve found it yet. (We certainly haven’t demonstrated it.)
      - sisve 4mo ago
        > reduces completion time by 30% This is probably the big problem, or at least one of them.. If you use less time on learning, it will probably be harder to remember what you learned also. We need to spend some time to make it stick
graphememes 4mo ago
just ban everyone from using ai completely lets go back to how it used to be
- nunez 4mo ago
  can't come fast enough this tech is unsustainable by design
- pesus 4mo ago
  What a dream. If we could also somehow get rid of social media at the same time (or at least algorithmic recommendations and other predatory practices), the world would be a significantly better place.
garganzol 4mo ago
I already saw it in my life: a ban on calculators, a ban on computers. But after a short period of rejection, everybody starts to embrace the new tech. Instead of bans we were getting computer classes in schools.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
  > after a short period of rejection, everybody starts to embrace the new tech We’re banning cell phones in school after seeing the evidence, albeit along a class gradient. We’ll probably see something similar with AI. Poor kids get AI in school (and unmonitored at home). Rich kids do not.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- cryo32 4mo ago
  I did mathematics, and a fair bit of computer science on the side. This was nearly all on paper, without computers. And I'd go a week or two without a calculator sometimes, mostly employing it when I had a bad hangover. Do we really need to force technology into everything or are we just used to doing it so see it as necessary?
  - garganzol 4mo ago
    I did mathematics on paper, and informatics on computers. Some of my peers weren't so lucky, so they had to do informatics on paper only. Needless to say that the magnitude of progress we were getting in informatics had day and night difference, not in the favor of paper. AI is indeed dangerous. It gives super abilities when in the right hands. Some people don't like it as it creates competition for their mere existence. They start gaslighting campaigns - "AI is bad, dangerous, does not work, consumes too much energy etc". This is luddism of our century, but also a form of psychopathy. When everybody is being gaslit, some of the very same players who spreads false narratives use AI to their own benefit.
    - cryo32 4mo ago
queeshonda 4mo ago
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charcircuit 4mo ago
The traditional schooling system can't stand that they are being outcompeted by AI and are trying to use the government to maintain their monopoly and keep those tax dollars flowing.
- LtWorf 4mo ago
  Yep… I mean scientific studies seem to suggest that you are completely wrong. But big science is all a conspiracy against those AI companies that work so hard for the betterment of mankind after all.
  - charcircuit 4mo ago
    I believe my eyes more than studies. I have learned so much, so fast through the process of talking with LLMs.
    - javascripthater 4mo ago
      Such as?
      - charcircuit 4mo ago
        A lot of finance related concepts I wasn't very familiar with and I used a LLM to understand them. I was able to ask questions to make sure that I understood things correctly.
    - LtWorf 4mo ago
      And you are a pedagogy expert and a teacher to young children? If not, perhaps accept that the people who have more than absolutely zero experience have more informed opinions.
- solid_fuel 4mo ago
  > The traditional schooling system can't stand that they are being outcompeted by AI and are trying to use the government to maintain their monopoly and keep those tax dollars flowing. Learning is a conspiracy by Big Knowing, it's all a myth. Let's just ask an LLM to all our thinking, no need to be a functional human.
cryo32 4mo ago
I'm glad this is the case. It is the correct outcome. I've heard students actually discussing that they will just use an LLM to shortcut work. I even have friends in their 50s who can barely think for themselves now without having to refer to "AI". And at least two of them are teachers. Leading on from that, the staff are the most dangerous. My daughter has had generated exercises provided to her from multiple teachers, which are quite frankly entirely wrong. This was hilariously pointed out after I called a meeting with her mathematics teacher over it. They questioned my knowledge on the matter with the insane assumption that "AI is foolproof". I had to hit them with a clue stick then. No one taught anything of value. No one learned anything of value. I am very worried we'll see a lost generation at some point rippling through the ages.
- Aerolfos 4mo ago
  > Leading on from that, the staff are the most dangerous. My daughter has had generated exercises provided to her from multiple teachers, which are quite frankly entirely wrong. This was hilariously pointed out after I called a meeting with her mathematics teacher over it. They questioned my knowledge on the matter with the insane assumption that "AI is foolproof". I had to hit them with a clue stick then. They have also been explicitly told by the department of education to NOT do this, but it hasn't stopped lazy teachers all over. Apparently not doing your job, in direct contradiction to your given rules, is ok because "it's the future".
lacoolj 4mo ago
"..ban on smart phones.." "..ban on gen AI.." "..ban on social media.." yes YES YASSSSSSSSSSSS Ban all the things for kids. I don't want to be interviewing people in 10 years and decline every candidate because they can't correctly answer the question "You are 50ft away from the car wash. Do you walk or drive?"
- LtWorf 4mo ago
  To be fair, norwegian kids would probably fail because they don't have a clue how much 50 feet are.
  - WCSTombs 4mo ago
    The question is slightly vague (since I could be going there not to wash my car), but I'm pretty sure in the intended interpretation, the actual distance is irrelevant. :)
  - solid_fuel 4mo ago
    > To be fair, norwegian kids would probably fail because they don't have a clue how much 50 feet are. I... are you an LLM? The distance doesn't matter - you probably don't want to walk to the car wash.
    - gpt5 4mo ago
      I was going to comment that you missed the joke. However, it was still curious to me that you took it so seriously, so I looked at your comment history. It is almost all political (and outraged) commentary, and you tend to dominate posts like this with many comments, without adding nuance, substance, or listening to the other side. It reinforces a pet theory I have, that if I'll build a dynamic filter to HN to filter out political/ideological commentors, the quality of discussion I'll see will rise up again.
      - solid_fuel 4mo ago
        > It is almost all political (and outraged) commentary, and you tend to dominate posts like this with many comments, without adding nuance, substance, or listening to the other side. Facts don't care about your feelings, bud. And neither do I. > It reinforces a pet theory I have, that if I'll build a dynamic filter to HN to filter out political/ideological commentors, the quality of discussion I'll see will rise up again. Yes I'm certain you will be happier if you ignore everything that challenges you.
FinnLobsien 4mo ago
I think it’s quite tricky. On one side, writing is a form of thinking and cognitive training. Just NOT doing that work by having AI simulate it is not good for anyone’s cognitive development. At the same time, anyone growing up today will be using LLMs for massive parts of the jobs they grow up to do. So they should learn about it. I really feel for teachers/educators right now. It must be hard to remain demanding and insist on educating kids well while also preparing them for the future they’ll actually live in.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
  > anyone growing up today will be using LLMs for massive parts of the jobs they grow up to do. So they should learn about it Whatever AI looks like in 20 years is going to be so different from what it is today as to make distracting from basic skill-building an almost-certainly net negative educational effort.
  - FinnLobsien 4mo ago
    I agree to some degree. But by that logic, should kids in the 2000s not have learned about the internet because the internet fundamentally changed between then and now? I think that if anything, it’s really good I learned how to operate a computer and the Internet BEFORE what the Internet became. I pity the generation who don’t understand a computer’s folder structure because they grew up with smartphones and TikTok.
    - erentz 4mo ago
      Your example would call more to create an "information technology" subject in schools, that updates its curriculum to include changes like the development of AI. Thus, you go to that class, some of your coursework in the year is going to involve learning about AI and how it works, what it can and cannot do, using it for some project, so on. Not using AI for doing your homework in every other subject.
      - FinnLobsien 4mo ago
simonw 4mo ago
> Pupils from first through seventh grade, aged 6 to 13, should as a general rule not be using AI, while those in lower secondary school, aged 14 to 16, can cautiously adopt tools under teachers' supervision, the government said. Sounds right to me. Kids under 13 need to learn to read, write and comprehend text. Generative AI is not going to help them with those skills. They can play with AI at home, and after 13 they can learn how to use AI productively and, ideally, in a way that enhances rather than detracts from their education. Also from the story: > Facing a broad decline in education test scores, the government in 2024 banned smartphones from schools and has given teachers back more powers to enforce discipline in the classroom. A big hooray for that. Will be interesting to see what impact that has on Norway education - a quick search just now didn't turn up any detailed studies, presumably those will show up eventually.
- irishcoffee 4mo ago
  Kids can read, write, and comprehend text at 8. I don’t even like LLMs and I’m against this mess. Imagine having regulations rolled out when we were 8 saying “you can’t use the internet!” And I was running my own websites by 10 years old. Let’s stop pretending this tech is as interesting as we wish it was. If we want to ban models in school, ban laptops/chromebooks with internet. I don’t see the difference at this point.
  - cryo32 4mo ago
    At eight they have limited comprehension of the world around them and limited language skills. They need a lot longer to develop those in tandem. And also you may be above average there.
    - stackghost 4mo ago
      >At eight they have limited comprehension of the world around them and limited language skills. I have two kids and can confidently say eight year olds generally have good language skills, are capable of expressing themselves just fine, and have good comprehension of the parts of the world that they've been exposed to.
suyavuz 4mo ago
I think this is basically right. You don’t hand out calculators before kids understand arithmetic. LLM version is sneakier because skipping the work still produces something that looks finished.
- aykutseker 4mo ago
  A calculator gives you an answer. An LLM gives you an answer that sounds like it already checked itself.
  - cryo32 4mo ago
    Not quite. The LLM gives you a statistically probable sounding token stream. The calculator gives you a qualified answer within documented and deterministic limits of the device. No one knows how to use either.
    - charcircuit 4mo ago
      That is GPT-3. Modern models are rewarded based off the accuracy of their responses.
      - simianparrot 4mo ago
        No they are not
        deleted 4mo ago
        [deleted]
      - Aerolfos 4mo ago
        By... another AI model. Which uses statistical generation to decide whether the answer is likely to be accurate or not.
        charcircuit 4mo ago
bebe83939 4mo ago
Great, yet another "no child and no teacher left behind!" I was gifted kid, bored to death at basic school. I was reading books under the table, and was lucky to have tolerant teacher. Total ban would just push me to misbehaving and disrupting the class. AI is amazing tool for learning, if Norway can not harness it, there is something deeply wrong with the educational system. Perhaps teachers unions? Norway has a big problem with young immigrant kids at school not speaking Norwegian. Right now other kids are expected to teach them basic language, holding back their own development (like learning reading and writing)! Again, AI could provide amazing help here!
- bborud 4mo ago
  So I take it you have some expertise in teaching? At what level? K-12? Middle school? What, in your professional opinion as an educator, should schools do about AI in schools?
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - bebe83939 4mo ago
    I would allow schooling in other languages in primary schools in Norway. Basic education is a human right, and it is not right to force kids out of their mother tongue. Insisting on some obscure language is just misplaced nationalism! AI could help with that.
    - bborud 4mo ago
      The the only conclusion I can draw from that is that you know nothing about education and even less about Norway. FYI: all Norwegians learn at least one foreign language in school. It is mandatory. That means you have to, in case that’s a big word for you. If you so prefer you will have the option to learn one or two more in middle school and one or two more in high school. By the time I was 15 I spoke three languages. Everyone at that age would know at least two. Some would know four. Is it so much to ask that you at least consult the AI tools you speak so fondly of as tools of education before babbling about something you so obviously are deeply ignorant of? If nothing else then at least in lieu of growing a brain?
sohrob 4mo ago
I'm pretty certain the execs who run the large AI companies would limit their children's AI usage also.
nunez 4mo ago
Spend a few minutes on the teacher subreddits: /r/teachers and /r/professors, specifically. AI has been a disaster for student outcomes and educator performance, more or less across the board. It should be banned in education, but there's no way to enforce that without increasing educator workload substantially (eliminating homework and re-working lesson plans around that; moving tests and projects back into the classroom; etc.)
- ares623 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - QuadmasterXLII 4mo ago
      He’s either an anthropic employee or a joker, just based on basic timeline math
    - ares623 4mo ago
      Yes, I hoped it would've come across as so without the /s. Just goes to show where our fellow engineers are at. "Memory safety is humanity's last problem. Once we solve that then all of life's problems will naturally follow."
- ori_b 4mo ago
  Banning it in classrooms isn't going to fix things, not when adults are broadcasting to students that (in the actual words of Sam Altman) "intelligence will be too cheap to meter", that (in the words of Darius Amodei) half of white collar jobs will be gone by the time these students graduate school, and so on. If intelligence is too cheap to meter, mental labor is a losing proposition. We've also spent decades emphasizing STEM and de-emphasizing arts and culture. In a world like that, why would anyone value an education? So, it's no surprise they're going to opt out of a system that's investing trillions to make education useless. Even if the people building this world are wrong -- not all students are equipped to call some of the wealthiest people in the world complete bullshitters. Not all adults are ready to call them out as bullshitters, for that matter.
petercooper 4mo ago
Nothing mentioned about the use of AI by elementary school teachers who may well be using it to generate sub-par worksheets or to rapidly, and potentially inaccurately, mark work. Every special event flyer I get from my kids' school now seems to be AI generated. I'd be surprised if quizzes and worksheets don't head the same way.
- greekrich92 4mo ago
  This is Norway, not the US. They have standards and a functioning social contract.
abujazar 4mo ago
The problem is they were two decades late digitizing the classroom. Now we're dealing with the aftermath with the educational system still not being capable of keeping up with societal progress.
- froh 4mo ago
  that's dismissing that brains need time to evolve. what if brains need to be mature enough in and by themselves before they benefit from digital support? as in "no telly before 3-4, no smartphone before 14, prioritize pen and paper proficiency until 12-14" makes sense biological brain maturity? then "give'm a computer ASAP" is the wrong answer.
  - abujazar 4mo ago
    I don't think giving children tech adults don't fully understand is a goal by itself. But children shouldn't be limited by their parents' shortcomings either. Strict age limits may seem like a safe approach, but children and their capacity to bypass those rules should not be underestimated.
- delis-thumbs-7e 4mo ago
  Two decades late? So they should have brought computers to primary school in the 70’s? Teach them how to connect into a mainframe from a terminal?
enaaem 4mo ago
Buddhism identifies three stages of wisdom: 1. Wisdom through dogma. 2. Wisdom through reasoning. 3. Wisdom through experience. AI is just stage 1. Instant and easily digestible. Traditional learning forces you to go to Stage 2, because you are often given too much information and you need to compress it to memorise it. And the best way to compress it, is by finding some kind of logical structure in the information.
- aurelius_44 4mo ago
  Good connection, never thought of it that way. I learned it as: 1 Knowing what it is. 2 Knowing how it works. 3 Knowing what it can become.
- bobro 4mo ago
  I feel like in the context of AI in education, "wisdom through dogma" still doesn't capture it. It's not even wisdom nor dogma, but something in the form of wisdom developed through something in the form of dogma. "Wisdom" implies you actually believe it and embody it, but students don't believe it or embody it as much as just pass it along to finish the assignment. "Dogma" implies there's a coherent logic of accepted doctrine, but the output is more a stretched and morphed version of the most generalized doctrine imaginable.
  - skydhash 4mo ago
    In my country, education is the basic minimum for any social status. Dropping before the high school diploma is basically saying that you're going to be mediocre for your whole life. Anyone will try to get the basic down otherwise that means being ridiculed for your whole life basically.
spoaceman7777 4mo ago
Am I imagining things, or are all of the "vaguely pro-AI" comments being brigaded into oblivion? I can't remember ever seeing this many reasonable posts being downvoted to the point of greying out.
- erelong 4mo ago
  HN is an extremely biased hivemind like Reddit The anti-AI stance seems like a fashionable contrarianism, not sure what will end up changing it What's really interesting to me is seeing people who are pro-technology but anti-AI, like... if you're anti-tech, you become something like the Amish. If you're pro-tech, AI is the logical next development along that path of technology - whatever tech you preciously enjoyed, was part of the package deal of building this AI that we now see. So I guess I am curious to see if more anti-AI people become something like the Amish or if they come to terms with their championing of technology being equivalent to embracing AI.
insane_dreamer 4mo ago
It's absolutely the right move. We're already seeing declines in cognitive capabilities among adults using AI. We're going to wind up with future generations of ignorants if we let them start as kids. We are seriously in danger of "we need AI" becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as humanity becomes too stupid to do anything without AI, and we end up with a few companies essentially holding the keys to our collective ability to produce anything of value. Am I the only one freaked out about that?
seiie 4mo ago
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jessinra98 4mo ago
Education right now has basically become a giant AI echo chamber, and it's happening nationwide. It’s this bizarre setup where teachers use AI to make assignments, students use AI to do them, teachers use AI to grade them, and principals use AI to watch over the teachers.
dyauspitr 4mo ago
I love how data driven and fast acting these European countries are. It takes forever for anything to happen in the US even with 80% support.
WalterBright 4mo ago
I'd ban all technology in the classroom. What works is chalkboard and chalk, pencil and paper. You'll never get strong by watching a video of people lifting weights. Similarly, you'll never understand math by watching a video or having an AI do the work for you. And, somehow, writing out the words and equations by hand is very effective for learning. https://www.holdenluntz.com/artists/keystone-press-agency/albert-einstein-writing-on-blackboard/ https://www.holdenluntz.com/artists/keystone-press-agency/al...
- tacomagick 4mo ago
  I do not think your example is at all fair. You can definitely learn from the way AI solves a math question.
  - WalterBright 4mo ago
    > You can definitely learn from the way AI solves a math question. Challenge: learn some math from AI. Sleep on it. Duplicate it on paper the next day.
    - tacomagick 4mo ago
      Is this supposed to be difficult?
      - WalterBright 4mo ago
        Try it and see.
        tacomagick 4mo ago
        I have already used AI to help me study for my finals, It has helped me so I don't think I need to go out of my way to repeat again.
    - kcrwfrd_ 4mo ago
      It’s not math but I’m using AI to help study and learn DSA. I’m finding it helpful. But yeah you need to make attempts to apply what you’re learning and answer questions on your own. You can’t simply watch problems being solved (whether by an AI or a person) and retain it.
Aeolun 4mo ago
This feels so obvious I’m surprised it needed to be news.
clear-octopus 4mo ago
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fvckaigotohell 4mo ago
Fuck yeah go to hell AI. Kids shouldn't be touching that IP infringement slop producer with a 10 foot pole.
casey2 4mo ago
>"The most important thing in school is that our children learn to read, write and do mathematics," Stoere Language is not a tool for thought. It's a tool for communication. This has been known for decades. People routinely lose all language related faculties and remain competent in other skills. Their only value is in creating an artifact that a teacher can then look over and update their mental model of the students knowledge. This is no longer the case since students can now easily create those artifact without having a mental model. You are entirely swapping the test for the goal when you say language is the most important thing we much teach them. You are optimizing for a large noise to signal ratio. The EU's general obsession with deprecated tech is mindboggling. Teach you're kids these skills and you won't have to worry about getting sent to a nursing home, I guess.
dartharva 4mo ago
You can straight-up bypass AI mania in schooling altogether by just keeping pen-and-paper as the primary medium, as most Asian countries do. Digitization is a meaningless overcomplication.
tarkin2 4mo ago
The number of people--adults included--who, when don't know something they could easily think about, resort to some AI bot rather than thinking, and developing their mind and intelligence, is staggering. Giving kids a reason not to think and develop their intelligence seems a pathway to even further declines in intelligence. Seems a quick route to dementia in old age too: if you fail to exercise and maintain something it eventually stops working.
- delis-thumbs-7e 4mo ago
  If you have fast sugars and nice fat available at you any time of day and night, why to eat healthy? If you can spend your whole life getting easy dopamine hots from games and social media, why to exercise, study, work or do anything at all. And we have a little bot that does your thinking for you, so that we will become a society of dumb fat morons who just fill online spaces with whayever hate speech our future fascist dictators tell the AI to be the correct opinion. This is worse than 1984.
himata4113 4mo ago
The fundemental problem is motivation not AI and this is simply the result of a larger societal shift that happened to correlate with the advent of AI. Personally I've never done any homework or assignments, when I was outside school it was over. However, this motivated me to do really well in tests which in-turn made me extremely active during the limited time I had in school and I became pretty damn efficient at absorbing information and picking things up. So on the surface at minimum it appears that we should stop grading on activities outside school. To be honest, what worked the best for me was what my history teacher did, 5 minute tests at the start of the lesson, then 10-20 minutes of teaching + self study assignments, remaining time is grading + answering any questions and if grading goes fast they usually had time to continue teaching for a few more minutes before the lesson ended. Group study was also heavily utilized as a form to take the load off themselves when they were overwhelmed from work due to 12th grade students especially right before exams, most of our classes became group study. All the students from their class always performed exceptionally well in nationals even though it was a mid tier public school. I will recognize that I am a bit special and that students are extremely varied I picked up on this when I discovered that someone in 11th grade still couldn't grasp the pythagorean theorem. I don't really have a solution to the motivation problem when phones are just so addicting and have an atmosphere of their own, the best way I can put it is that your child becomes an outcast if they can't play roblox because everyone in their school does which is a very real thing my friend experienced with their kids.
- kakacik 4mo ago
  > I will recognize that I am a bit special Should have started with that. No, your experience doesn't easily translate into some general good advice, you are probably way-above-average bright. I for example went through old school education with tons of home work and benefited greatly from having enough time to comprehend harder topics more deeply, without rush. Memorizing is another aspect, my mind is slow in that so I took my time, trying to remember everything at class' pace would not bring results. Having some homework ain't something horrible, it became daily habit as part of education and I certainly don't see it negatively in hindsight. It also teaches things like a bit of self-discipline, a trait thats very rare in young these days, and probably the most important personality trait in overall long term life success. It doesn't come on its own, but can be taught/self-taught quite a bit over time. Again, in hindsight, those similarly mentally equipped but lacking it, after few decades, performed in life worse to much worse (I don't mean just money but overall life situation and happiness/fulfillment)
galkk 4mo ago
Completely understandable. My 6yo kiddo recently realized that smart speaker (Google home) can not only play her favorite songs, but answer her homework questions. And it was something not that trivial, like “which animal from the list changes color of its fur when seasons change: tiger, arctic fox, something else”. And now I need to either disable everything or figure out how to turn that off for her.
- lelanthran 4mo ago
  > And now I need to either disable everything or figure out how to turn that off for her. Why? I tell me 6yo "That's for adults only, children are not allowed to use it" and not have to worry. Sure, he'll push boundaries here and there, but with some things he knows "No means no" and doesn't push those boundaries. I have literally tested this: left a cookie on the table (that he wants) and told him "You can eat that cookie after you finish the thing you are reading" and left the room. Teaching kids to not succumb to their instant-gratification instincts is part of being a parent.
  - justanotherjoe 4mo ago
    You tested it, i doubt you authored it. A paternal twin can have one with good impulse control and another who's more instinctual. Even in the same family and upbringing.
    - lelanthran 4mo ago
      > A paternal twin can have one with good impulse control and another who's more instinctual. Even in the same family and upbringing. Sure it happens, but it's unlikely. It's why kids from certain cultures achieve better academic success on average than kids from other cultures, on average: the environment matters a lot.
    - kakacik 4mo ago
      At the end both will have to live in same society, and this society will not care whats their background and issues. Perform as expected and get reward, or otherwise not so much. Everybody can be taught some degree of behavior even if it may require different amount / type of effort, I refuse to believe it ain't true apart from most extreme cases.
AgentMasterRace 4mo ago
What about teachers using it to generate learning material that is just fabricated?
marton-laszlo-a 4mo ago
[flagged]
jingpostmedia 4mo ago
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FlippieFinance 4mo ago
The only AI elementary school kids should be confronted with is any AI their Nintendo Switch uses. Let the kids be kids, man
- delis-thumbs-7e 4mo ago
  There’s very few sensible posts in this thread. This is one of them.
polnurfer 4mo ago
[flagged]
yoz-y 4mo ago
Imo in elementary school they should not be using computers outside of a dedicated class.
- utopiah 4mo ago
  Computer literacy.
pedromlsreis 4mo ago
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pedromlsreis 4mo ago
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utopiah 4mo ago
I just had a discussion with 10 to 12 years old kids today. They are not using AI to learn, they are using it to cheat. It's not a moral judgement, it's what they, themselves, told me today in front of their peers. Initially they claimed it was an aid to get homework done, then their own peers asked few questions to clarify and they themselves came to the conclusion (after quite some pushback and mental gymnastic) that it was indeed to cheat. So... ask kids themselves, see what they do and what they say, it's fascinating.
greenoracle9 4mo ago
[flagged]
tlogan 4mo ago
It is wrong to think kids should not use AI. They actually need to use AI the most. Childhood is the age when you constantly ask “why” until you get to the bottom of the problem. It is the age of enormous curiosity. But schools, teachers, and parents do not have enough time or knowledge to answer every single “why.” AI is here to stay, and I believe the future of AI is education. But that also means we need to change how we test students. We should bring back more oral exams and in-person writing exams. But to learn things please use AI.
Nathanba 4mo ago
It's just "rock and roll and video games are bad" popular nonsense. AI is the best learning tool you could possibly ask for, it's literally your own personal ultra knowledgeable teacher that has all day to answer questions from you. I remember being in school and the most I could hope for was to raise my hand and ask one (1) question sometimes. The teacher would then already be miffed if I asked another follow up and made sure to quickly keep talking so that I wouldn't ask anything else alongside all kinds of other social cues or just outright tell me to look at it at home. I remember falling behind in understanding some basic math concepts and literally never ending up understanding them fully. When you are a child nobody cares in the slightest, you are alone. How could AI possibly make this situation any worse? Life is already at the near maximum pain for children, you barely get to ask a question before you get shut down and you get to reread the same exact useless textbook explanation 30 times in a row. AI is a 100% net gain, it's like having 50 extra teachers on standby. Is having teachers suddenly a bad thing? Of course not. Especially not if the only reason you dislike the teachers is because you can't tell the child to use the teachers intelligently for maximum, fastest gain in understanding. In the future we should be getting rid of nearly the entire teaching position and instead be going with a model where human teachers are more like guidance counselors that can offer some extra experience and anecdotes from how things will be in real life, something that AI will inherently have less ability to do. All these restrictions are just made by adults who literally don't care to think about how life is for children and have long forgotten. They just want to give orders from the top without having to think about it. Is there a danger that children will abuse it? Of course, it's a massive danger. Without AI there is also a massive danger that children will never learn something properly because nobody has time to teach them. Does anyone care about that danger? Does anyone care that a child will waste years of its life in schooling that is boring? No because that damage is invisible to people who do not care, the children will become intellectually stunted and stop caring about learning or doing productive things. Life is full of dangers, the goal should be to use all the tools we have in their optimal way and if that includes teaching children how to use AI, when to use it and the value of understanding things then the time for that is as soon as possible. I have a feeling that all these complaints about AI come from people who themselves never learned the value of independent thinking and stopped thinking at some point. They went through schooling but with rote memorization and repetition and little to no curiosity or drive to do anything other than the exact homework that the teacher gave them. This is especially ridiculous: "In upper secondary education, from ages 17 to 19, students should learn to use AI appropriately so that they are prepared for further education and work, it added.". So when you are already an adult and went through over a decade of schooling you can finally use AI? When you are 14 there are children these days that are already making videogames, there is no reason whatsoever to hold children back. Stop treating children like their time is worthless. This is their life time, you don't get to take it away from them however you like as if they are dumb pets that just need to be taught how to behave.
akomtu 4mo ago
Good for Norway. AI turns your brain into slop real quick, especially in the formative years.
ronburgandy28 4mo ago
[flagged]

823 points by ilreb 4mo ago

Surprised to read this as Norway also has Sikt AI for schools, where teachers can monitor how AI systems are used. Seems like it has both embraced AI and banned it.

embedding-shape 4mo ago
> Seems like it has both embraced AI and banned it. Indeed, seemingly they done so by age/educational progression: > Pupils from first through seventh grade, aged 6 to 13, should as a general rule not be using AI, while those in lower secondary school, aged 14 to 16, can cautiously adopt tools under teachers' supervision, the government said. In upper secondary education, from ages 17 to 19, students should learn to use AI appropriately so that they are prepared for further education and work, it added.
wwweston 4mo ago
I wonder if the struggle is really comprehending thoughtful selective adoption. Schools are the place where the product is a more fully developed person. There's no LLM shortcut for generating that. There are many ways you could use LLMs that would discourage it. There may be some that can encourage it. Personally, I can see aggressively keeping kids away from LLMs until they've learned effort, living in tension/frustration, the pleasure of breaking through to discovery, trust evaluation, hypothesis/test cycles, and good socratic dialogue from the learner's side. It may be possible at intermediate phases to prime some models to help with this process.
- elasticeel 4mo ago
  Very well said. As someone who taught for 6 years it's hard enough to just stay on top of lesson planning, let alone opens my curriculum to incorporate a tool (LLMs) which I'm personally figuring out for my own use. LLMs add the most utility to people who understand process and what a good result looks and feels like. To a novice they can't stunt the learning of this.

petcat 4mo ago

I wonder if at some point we will look back on stuff like this as back in the 1990s schools banning internet research and search engines. Obviously that seems ridiculous now, but the internet was big and scary back then too.

JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
Those bans were implemented without evidence. We have evidence AI exposure reduces learning and cognition. There are probably situations where it enhances it. But we haven’t delineated those yet, and so shouldn’t be rolling out a half-baked system more likely to hurt than to help.
- petcat 4mo ago
  what is the evidence
  - wieiw 4mo ago
    [flagged]
  - AndrewDucker 4mo ago
    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01947-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01947-1
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
Retric 4mo ago
Few schools allow unrestricted internet access these days. The general question here is risks vs rewards and with any new technology both are unknown making caution perfectly reasonable be that internet searches or anything else. So sure in 30 years the policy will look different, but that doesn’t mean they are making the wrong decision.
4mo ago

iamflimflam1 4mo ago

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FloorEgg 4mo ago

Wouldn't it matter a lot how AI is being used? I would assume if children are allowed to use AI without rails as a shortcut it will undermine their learning, and it's used for feedback and as a patient tutor it would accelerate their learning? It seems like the problem is that they don't have the science and tooling to use it constructively at scale, so the desperate solution is to ban it outright until a scalable constructive approach is understood? The article doesn't explain any of this directly... It's frustrating to me when bold statements are directed at "AI" holistically and vaguely, completely ignoring any nuance. There is a massive gap between letting elementary students free reign use chatGPT 3.5 (hallucinations and all) to do whatever, vs using a very guard-railed pedagogically optimized app powered by a SOTA model to support students in a specific way that accelerates good outcomes. Most respectful interpretation is that the leaders know this and have a plan to figure it out, but for some reason it's not making it's way into this article. Is the absence representative of the truth of the situation, or some editors choice to pile on to a holistic anti-ai narrative?

JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
> it's used for feedback and as a patient tutor it would accelerate their learning? We have mounting evidence AI hurts learning and cognition in many circumstances. I have not yet seen similar-quality evidence for it helping. Given that balance, restricting AI in education in the general population (while studying how to best deploy it) seems prudent. Especially given the Norwegian approach, which gradually introduces AI as kids get older.
- bpodgursky 4mo ago
  AI makes me worse at programming but helps me learn things much more quickly than reading textbooks. Both can be true.
  - JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
    > but helps me learn things much more quickly than reading textbooks Have you tested this against an external metric of competence? The research seems to show that AI is great at making you feel you know something. But I think the studies looking at language learning found those using AI extensively tested below peers using traditional methods.

morkalork 4mo ago

Social media execs are already known for keeping their children off their platforms* and even phones so my question is: Do the leading ML/AI people let their children interact with LLMs yes or no? [*] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/13/youtubes-ceo-is-latest-tech-boss-limiting-his-kids-social-media-use.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/13/youtubes-ceo-is-latest-tech-...

JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
Broadly speaking, the wealthier the parents the more restrictive device is in general in the household. This used to be a tech/non-tech line. It shifted to class sometime over the last ten years. The iPad kids are probably getting served slop. The AI-employed parents don’t have to directly police AI exposure because their kids’ device use is already controlled; at school, at extra-curriculars and at home.
- pawelmurias 4mo ago
  The question is do the allow them to use their laptops to access llms. Like I assume before ai they where not allowing the kids to fry their brains doom scrolling but would allow programming. They weren't blocking all tech as they aren't raising subsistence farmers.
  - JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
    > I assume before ai they where not allowing the kids to fry their brains doom scrolling but would allow programming Young kids don’t need to learn programming. They need to learn math, reading, spatial reasoning and social skills. (Among other things.) The kids who were being taught Java in elementary school ten years ago aren’t particularly better off for it.
  - morkalork 4mo ago
    I figure they let them use Wikipedia, google etc. before though so I am curious where the line exists now.
4mo ago

replwoacause 4mo ago

Good, wholeheartedly agree with this. Too bad US legislators are impotent.

tadfisher 4mo ago
US legislators have almost no say in how schools are run. The DoE is a husk, and states call the shots. In my state of Oregon, you will have wildly different curricula and standards depending on your district, because there's almost no state oversight either.
- LastTrain 4mo ago
  Yes, that is what impotent means.
- solid_fuel 4mo ago
  They made a choice - US legislators effectively gave up their control of how schools are run when the conservative coalition allowed the trump administration to dismantle the DoE without congressional approval. Congress itself could legally retain control of education, but if congress refuses to assert that power then it is meaningless. The end goal is to dismantle public education and route public money to religious and private schools.
  - gpt5 4mo ago
    No - US always delegated education policy decision locally. Not just the state level, but the local district has the most amount of control. Nothing material here has changed in the last few years.
    - solid_fuel 4mo ago
      > Nothing material here has changed in the last few years. Bald faced lies from you, nothing surprising here. I could take the time in explaining how state and federal responsibilities are divided, I could go through the history of the Department of Education and how funding for schools works in the US. I could point to dozens of examples of you being wrong from any decade in the last century, from de-segregation to "no child left behind". But there's no point, since you're just a troll and not here for a real discussion. No one interested in a sincere exchange of ideas would start from such a stupid premise. So you can go ahead and look through my comment history all you want, and respond all you want, but it'll just make you mad and get you flagged. You would be better served by finding a large rock to kick.

bko 4mo ago

Im confused, are there tasks given to 6 to 13 year old to use AI? In the classroom, are they just throwing gpt in front of them? Is that the modern equivalent of watching a vhs? Or do they have homework to vibe code something or given some prompts to ask at home and save somewhere? Serious question, what does this mean?

deleted 4mo ago
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vorticalbox 4mo ago
Well one can no longer search for information in the big search engines without it just giving you the answer. This ruins “search and topic and write about it”
- setopt 4mo ago
  I guess Norwegian schools will have to use smaller / alternative search engines now?
  - pesus 4mo ago
    Or books.
    - estetlinus 4mo ago
      Yes, please.
  - throwaway2037 4mo ago
    Or they can disable "AI" from the search results to only get "traditional" search results.
sisve 4mo ago
There where no clear rules on the matter. Now the PM has given some guidance to schools so they know when they should use it and not. If there are no guidance teachers and schools can do what they want and some teachers would probably go to far to early

baq 4mo ago

AI used to write homework should be banned. AI in 1:1 tutor mode with proper hardware (live scanning pen and paper), harness and guardrails should be wildly successful (in terms of education outcomes) especially in elementary school.

JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
> AI in 1:1 tutor mode with proper hardware, harness and guardrails should be wildly successful I’m open to the idea! Show me the evidence. Then we can roll it out to our kids.
- baq 4mo ago
  Glad you’re asking. https://cepr.org/publications/dp21577 https://cepr.org/publications/dp21577
  - YawningAngel 4mo ago
    >AI users who maintain similar homework completion time as non-AI users experience small learning losses. Seems like there's no benefit even if it's used "correctly"?
  - JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
    “AI adoption raises homework scores by 18% and reduces completion time by 30%, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months. High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24%, with the full penalty emerging only after about two years.” Yup. Short-term metrics juice. Actual comprehension and cognition falls. This seems to be the case across the board, including with adults. I’m genuinely optimistic that there is a way to make AI helpful in education. I just don’t think we’ve found it yet. (We certainly haven’t demonstrated it.)
    - sisve 4mo ago
      > reduces completion time by 30% This is probably the big problem, or at least one of them.. If you use less time on learning, it will probably be harder to remember what you learned also. We need to spend some time to make it stick

graphememes 4mo ago

just ban everyone from using ai completely lets go back to how it used to be

nunez 4mo ago
can't come fast enough this tech is unsustainable by design
pesus 4mo ago
What a dream. If we could also somehow get rid of social media at the same time (or at least algorithmic recommendations and other predatory practices), the world would be a significantly better place.

garganzol 4mo ago

I already saw it in my life: a ban on calculators, a ban on computers. But after a short period of rejection, everybody starts to embrace the new tech. Instead of bans we were getting computer classes in schools.

JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
> after a short period of rejection, everybody starts to embrace the new tech We’re banning cell phones in school after seeing the evidence, albeit along a class gradient. We’ll probably see something similar with AI. Poor kids get AI in school (and unmonitored at home). Rich kids do not.
deleted 4mo ago
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cryo32 4mo ago
I did mathematics, and a fair bit of computer science on the side. This was nearly all on paper, without computers. And I'd go a week or two without a calculator sometimes, mostly employing it when I had a bad hangover. Do we really need to force technology into everything or are we just used to doing it so see it as necessary?
- garganzol 4mo ago
  I did mathematics on paper, and informatics on computers. Some of my peers weren't so lucky, so they had to do informatics on paper only. Needless to say that the magnitude of progress we were getting in informatics had day and night difference, not in the favor of paper. AI is indeed dangerous. It gives super abilities when in the right hands. Some people don't like it as it creates competition for their mere existence. They start gaslighting campaigns - "AI is bad, dangerous, does not work, consumes too much energy etc". This is luddism of our century, but also a form of psychopathy. When everybody is being gaslit, some of the very same players who spreads false narratives use AI to their own benefit.
  - cryo32 4mo ago

queeshonda 4mo ago

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charcircuit 4mo ago

The traditional schooling system can't stand that they are being outcompeted by AI and are trying to use the government to maintain their monopoly and keep those tax dollars flowing.

LtWorf 4mo ago
Yep… I mean scientific studies seem to suggest that you are completely wrong. But big science is all a conspiracy against those AI companies that work so hard for the betterment of mankind after all.
- charcircuit 4mo ago
  I believe my eyes more than studies. I have learned so much, so fast through the process of talking with LLMs.
  - javascripthater 4mo ago
    Such as?
    - charcircuit 4mo ago
      A lot of finance related concepts I wasn't very familiar with and I used a LLM to understand them. I was able to ask questions to make sure that I understood things correctly.
  - LtWorf 4mo ago
    And you are a pedagogy expert and a teacher to young children? If not, perhaps accept that the people who have more than absolutely zero experience have more informed opinions.
solid_fuel 4mo ago
> The traditional schooling system can't stand that they are being outcompeted by AI and are trying to use the government to maintain their monopoly and keep those tax dollars flowing. Learning is a conspiracy by Big Knowing, it's all a myth. Let's just ask an LLM to all our thinking, no need to be a functional human.

cryo32 4mo ago

I'm glad this is the case. It is the correct outcome. I've heard students actually discussing that they will just use an LLM to shortcut work. I even have friends in their 50s who can barely think for themselves now without having to refer to "AI". And at least two of them are teachers. Leading on from that, the staff are the most dangerous. My daughter has had generated exercises provided to her from multiple teachers, which are quite frankly entirely wrong. This was hilariously pointed out after I called a meeting with her mathematics teacher over it. They questioned my knowledge on the matter with the insane assumption that "AI is foolproof". I had to hit them with a clue stick then. No one taught anything of value. No one learned anything of value. I am very worried we'll see a lost generation at some point rippling through the ages.

Aerolfos 4mo ago
> Leading on from that, the staff are the most dangerous. My daughter has had generated exercises provided to her from multiple teachers, which are quite frankly entirely wrong. This was hilariously pointed out after I called a meeting with her mathematics teacher over it. They questioned my knowledge on the matter with the insane assumption that "AI is foolproof". I had to hit them with a clue stick then. They have also been explicitly told by the department of education to NOT do this, but it hasn't stopped lazy teachers all over. Apparently not doing your job, in direct contradiction to your given rules, is ok because "it's the future".

lacoolj 4mo ago

"..ban on smart phones.." "..ban on gen AI.." "..ban on social media.." yes YES YASSSSSSSSSSSS Ban all the things for kids. I don't want to be interviewing people in 10 years and decline every candidate because they can't correctly answer the question "You are 50ft away from the car wash. Do you walk or drive?"

LtWorf 4mo ago
To be fair, norwegian kids would probably fail because they don't have a clue how much 50 feet are.
- WCSTombs 4mo ago
  The question is slightly vague (since I could be going there not to wash my car), but I'm pretty sure in the intended interpretation, the actual distance is irrelevant. :)
- solid_fuel 4mo ago
  > To be fair, norwegian kids would probably fail because they don't have a clue how much 50 feet are. I... are you an LLM? The distance doesn't matter - you probably don't want to walk to the car wash.
  - gpt5 4mo ago
    I was going to comment that you missed the joke. However, it was still curious to me that you took it so seriously, so I looked at your comment history. It is almost all political (and outraged) commentary, and you tend to dominate posts like this with many comments, without adding nuance, substance, or listening to the other side. It reinforces a pet theory I have, that if I'll build a dynamic filter to HN to filter out political/ideological commentors, the quality of discussion I'll see will rise up again.
    - solid_fuel 4mo ago
      > It is almost all political (and outraged) commentary, and you tend to dominate posts like this with many comments, without adding nuance, substance, or listening to the other side. Facts don't care about your feelings, bud. And neither do I. > It reinforces a pet theory I have, that if I'll build a dynamic filter to HN to filter out political/ideological commentors, the quality of discussion I'll see will rise up again. Yes I'm certain you will be happier if you ignore everything that challenges you.

FinnLobsien 4mo ago

I think it’s quite tricky. On one side, writing is a form of thinking and cognitive training. Just NOT doing that work by having AI simulate it is not good for anyone’s cognitive development. At the same time, anyone growing up today will be using LLMs for massive parts of the jobs they grow up to do. So they should learn about it. I really feel for teachers/educators right now. It must be hard to remain demanding and insist on educating kids well while also preparing them for the future they’ll actually live in.

JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
> anyone growing up today will be using LLMs for massive parts of the jobs they grow up to do. So they should learn about it Whatever AI looks like in 20 years is going to be so different from what it is today as to make distracting from basic skill-building an almost-certainly net negative educational effort.
- FinnLobsien 4mo ago
  I agree to some degree. But by that logic, should kids in the 2000s not have learned about the internet because the internet fundamentally changed between then and now? I think that if anything, it’s really good I learned how to operate a computer and the Internet BEFORE what the Internet became. I pity the generation who don’t understand a computer’s folder structure because they grew up with smartphones and TikTok.
  - erentz 4mo ago
    Your example would call more to create an "information technology" subject in schools, that updates its curriculum to include changes like the development of AI. Thus, you go to that class, some of your coursework in the year is going to involve learning about AI and how it works, what it can and cannot do, using it for some project, so on. Not using AI for doing your homework in every other subject.
    - FinnLobsien 4mo ago

simonw 4mo ago

> Pupils from first through seventh grade, aged 6 to 13, should as a general rule not be using AI, while those in lower secondary school, aged 14 to 16, can cautiously adopt tools under teachers' supervision, the government said. Sounds right to me. Kids under 13 need to learn to read, write and comprehend text. Generative AI is not going to help them with those skills. They can play with AI at home, and after 13 they can learn how to use AI productively and, ideally, in a way that enhances rather than detracts from their education. Also from the story: > Facing a broad decline in education test scores, the government in 2024 banned smartphones from schools and has given teachers back more powers to enforce discipline in the classroom. A big hooray for that. Will be interesting to see what impact that has on Norway education - a quick search just now didn't turn up any detailed studies, presumably those will show up eventually.

irishcoffee 4mo ago
Kids can read, write, and comprehend text at 8. I don’t even like LLMs and I’m against this mess. Imagine having regulations rolled out when we were 8 saying “you can’t use the internet!” And I was running my own websites by 10 years old. Let’s stop pretending this tech is as interesting as we wish it was. If we want to ban models in school, ban laptops/chromebooks with internet. I don’t see the difference at this point.
- cryo32 4mo ago
  At eight they have limited comprehension of the world around them and limited language skills. They need a lot longer to develop those in tandem. And also you may be above average there.
  - stackghost 4mo ago
    >At eight they have limited comprehension of the world around them and limited language skills. I have two kids and can confidently say eight year olds generally have good language skills, are capable of expressing themselves just fine, and have good comprehension of the parts of the world that they've been exposed to.

suyavuz 4mo ago

I think this is basically right. You don’t hand out calculators before kids understand arithmetic. LLM version is sneakier because skipping the work still produces something that looks finished.

aykutseker 4mo ago
A calculator gives you an answer. An LLM gives you an answer that sounds like it already checked itself.
- cryo32 4mo ago
  Not quite. The LLM gives you a statistically probable sounding token stream. The calculator gives you a qualified answer within documented and deterministic limits of the device. No one knows how to use either.
  - charcircuit 4mo ago
    That is GPT-3. Modern models are rewarded based off the accuracy of their responses.
    - simianparrot 4mo ago
      No they are not
      - deleted 4mo ago
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    - Aerolfos 4mo ago
      By... another AI model. Which uses statistical generation to decide whether the answer is likely to be accurate or not.
      - charcircuit 4mo ago

bebe83939 4mo ago

Great, yet another "no child and no teacher left behind!" I was gifted kid, bored to death at basic school. I was reading books under the table, and was lucky to have tolerant teacher. Total ban would just push me to misbehaving and disrupting the class. AI is amazing tool for learning, if Norway can not harness it, there is something deeply wrong with the educational system. Perhaps teachers unions? Norway has a big problem with young immigrant kids at school not speaking Norwegian. Right now other kids are expected to teach them basic language, holding back their own development (like learning reading and writing)! Again, AI could provide amazing help here!

bborud 4mo ago
So I take it you have some expertise in teaching? At what level? K-12? Middle school? What, in your professional opinion as an educator, should schools do about AI in schools?
- deleted 4mo ago
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- bebe83939 4mo ago
  I would allow schooling in other languages in primary schools in Norway. Basic education is a human right, and it is not right to force kids out of their mother tongue. Insisting on some obscure language is just misplaced nationalism! AI could help with that.
  - bborud 4mo ago
    The the only conclusion I can draw from that is that you know nothing about education and even less about Norway. FYI: all Norwegians learn at least one foreign language in school. It is mandatory. That means you have to, in case that’s a big word for you. If you so prefer you will have the option to learn one or two more in middle school and one or two more in high school. By the time I was 15 I spoke three languages. Everyone at that age would know at least two. Some would know four. Is it so much to ask that you at least consult the AI tools you speak so fondly of as tools of education before babbling about something you so obviously are deeply ignorant of? If nothing else then at least in lieu of growing a brain?

sohrob 4mo ago

I'm pretty certain the execs who run the large AI companies would limit their children's AI usage also.

nunez 4mo ago

Spend a few minutes on the teacher subreddits: /r/teachers and /r/professors, specifically. AI has been a disaster for student outcomes and educator performance, more or less across the board. It should be banned in education, but there's no way to enforce that without increasing educator workload substantially (eliminating homework and re-working lesson plans around that; moving tests and projects back into the classroom; etc.)

ares623 4mo ago
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- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4mo ago
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  - QuadmasterXLII 4mo ago
    He’s either an anthropic employee or a joker, just based on basic timeline math
  - ares623 4mo ago
    Yes, I hoped it would've come across as so without the /s. Just goes to show where our fellow engineers are at. "Memory safety is humanity's last problem. Once we solve that then all of life's problems will naturally follow."
ori_b 4mo ago
Banning it in classrooms isn't going to fix things, not when adults are broadcasting to students that (in the actual words of Sam Altman) "intelligence will be too cheap to meter", that (in the words of Darius Amodei) half of white collar jobs will be gone by the time these students graduate school, and so on. If intelligence is too cheap to meter, mental labor is a losing proposition. We've also spent decades emphasizing STEM and de-emphasizing arts and culture. In a world like that, why would anyone value an education? So, it's no surprise they're going to opt out of a system that's investing trillions to make education useless. Even if the people building this world are wrong -- not all students are equipped to call some of the wealthiest people in the world complete bullshitters. Not all adults are ready to call them out as bullshitters, for that matter.

petercooper 4mo ago

Nothing mentioned about the use of AI by elementary school teachers who may well be using it to generate sub-par worksheets or to rapidly, and potentially inaccurately, mark work. Every special event flyer I get from my kids' school now seems to be AI generated. I'd be surprised if quizzes and worksheets don't head the same way.

greekrich92 4mo ago
This is Norway, not the US. They have standards and a functioning social contract.

abujazar 4mo ago

The problem is they were two decades late digitizing the classroom. Now we're dealing with the aftermath with the educational system still not being capable of keeping up with societal progress.

froh 4mo ago
that's dismissing that brains need time to evolve. what if brains need to be mature enough in and by themselves before they benefit from digital support? as in "no telly before 3-4, no smartphone before 14, prioritize pen and paper proficiency until 12-14" makes sense biological brain maturity? then "give'm a computer ASAP" is the wrong answer.
- abujazar 4mo ago
  I don't think giving children tech adults don't fully understand is a goal by itself. But children shouldn't be limited by their parents' shortcomings either. Strict age limits may seem like a safe approach, but children and their capacity to bypass those rules should not be underestimated.
delis-thumbs-7e 4mo ago
Two decades late? So they should have brought computers to primary school in the 70’s? Teach them how to connect into a mainframe from a terminal?

enaaem 4mo ago

Buddhism identifies three stages of wisdom: 1. Wisdom through dogma. 2. Wisdom through reasoning. 3. Wisdom through experience. AI is just stage 1. Instant and easily digestible. Traditional learning forces you to go to Stage 2, because you are often given too much information and you need to compress it to memorise it. And the best way to compress it, is by finding some kind of logical structure in the information.

aurelius_44 4mo ago
Good connection, never thought of it that way. I learned it as: 1 Knowing what it is. 2 Knowing how it works. 3 Knowing what it can become.
bobro 4mo ago
I feel like in the context of AI in education, "wisdom through dogma" still doesn't capture it. It's not even wisdom nor dogma, but something in the form of wisdom developed through something in the form of dogma. "Wisdom" implies you actually believe it and embody it, but students don't believe it or embody it as much as just pass it along to finish the assignment. "Dogma" implies there's a coherent logic of accepted doctrine, but the output is more a stretched and morphed version of the most generalized doctrine imaginable.
- skydhash 4mo ago
  In my country, education is the basic minimum for any social status. Dropping before the high school diploma is basically saying that you're going to be mediocre for your whole life. Anyone will try to get the basic down otherwise that means being ridiculed for your whole life basically.

spoaceman7777 4mo ago

Am I imagining things, or are all of the "vaguely pro-AI" comments being brigaded into oblivion? I can't remember ever seeing this many reasonable posts being downvoted to the point of greying out.

erelong 4mo ago
HN is an extremely biased hivemind like Reddit The anti-AI stance seems like a fashionable contrarianism, not sure what will end up changing it What's really interesting to me is seeing people who are pro-technology but anti-AI, like... if you're anti-tech, you become something like the Amish. If you're pro-tech, AI is the logical next development along that path of technology - whatever tech you preciously enjoyed, was part of the package deal of building this AI that we now see. So I guess I am curious to see if more anti-AI people become something like the Amish or if they come to terms with their championing of technology being equivalent to embracing AI.

insane_dreamer 4mo ago

It's absolutely the right move. We're already seeing declines in cognitive capabilities among adults using AI. We're going to wind up with future generations of ignorants if we let them start as kids. We are seriously in danger of "we need AI" becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as humanity becomes too stupid to do anything without AI, and we end up with a few companies essentially holding the keys to our collective ability to produce anything of value. Am I the only one freaked out about that?

seiie 4mo ago

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jessinra98 4mo ago

Education right now has basically become a giant AI echo chamber, and it's happening nationwide. It’s this bizarre setup where teachers use AI to make assignments, students use AI to do them, teachers use AI to grade them, and principals use AI to watch over the teachers.

dyauspitr 4mo ago

I love how data driven and fast acting these European countries are. It takes forever for anything to happen in the US even with 80% support.

WalterBright 4mo ago

I'd ban all technology in the classroom. What works is chalkboard and chalk, pencil and paper. You'll never get strong by watching a video of people lifting weights. Similarly, you'll never understand math by watching a video or having an AI do the work for you. And, somehow, writing out the words and equations by hand is very effective for learning. https://www.holdenluntz.com/artists/keystone-press-agency/albert-einstein-writing-on-blackboard/ https://www.holdenluntz.com/artists/keystone-press-agency/al...

tacomagick 4mo ago
I do not think your example is at all fair. You can definitely learn from the way AI solves a math question.
- WalterBright 4mo ago
  > You can definitely learn from the way AI solves a math question. Challenge: learn some math from AI. Sleep on it. Duplicate it on paper the next day.
  - tacomagick 4mo ago
    Is this supposed to be difficult?
    - WalterBright 4mo ago
      Try it and see.
      - tacomagick 4mo ago
        I have already used AI to help me study for my finals, It has helped me so I don't think I need to go out of my way to repeat again.
  - kcrwfrd_ 4mo ago
    It’s not math but I’m using AI to help study and learn DSA. I’m finding it helpful. But yeah you need to make attempts to apply what you’re learning and answer questions on your own. You can’t simply watch problems being solved (whether by an AI or a person) and retain it.

Aeolun 4mo ago

This feels so obvious I’m surprised it needed to be news.

clear-octopus 4mo ago

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fvckaigotohell 4mo ago

Fuck yeah go to hell AI. Kids shouldn't be touching that IP infringement slop producer with a 10 foot pole.

casey2 4mo ago

>"The most important thing in school is that our children learn to read, write and do mathematics," Stoere Language is not a tool for thought. It's a tool for communication. This has been known for decades. People routinely lose all language related faculties and remain competent in other skills. Their only value is in creating an artifact that a teacher can then look over and update their mental model of the students knowledge. This is no longer the case since students can now easily create those artifact without having a mental model. You are entirely swapping the test for the goal when you say language is the most important thing we much teach them. You are optimizing for a large noise to signal ratio. The EU's general obsession with deprecated tech is mindboggling. Teach you're kids these skills and you won't have to worry about getting sent to a nursing home, I guess.

dartharva 4mo ago

You can straight-up bypass AI mania in schooling altogether by just keeping pen-and-paper as the primary medium, as most Asian countries do. Digitization is a meaningless overcomplication.

tarkin2 4mo ago

The number of people--adults included--who, when don't know something they could easily think about, resort to some AI bot rather than thinking, and developing their mind and intelligence, is staggering. Giving kids a reason not to think and develop their intelligence seems a pathway to even further declines in intelligence. Seems a quick route to dementia in old age too: if you fail to exercise and maintain something it eventually stops working.

delis-thumbs-7e 4mo ago
If you have fast sugars and nice fat available at you any time of day and night, why to eat healthy? If you can spend your whole life getting easy dopamine hots from games and social media, why to exercise, study, work or do anything at all. And we have a little bot that does your thinking for you, so that we will become a society of dumb fat morons who just fill online spaces with whayever hate speech our future fascist dictators tell the AI to be the correct opinion. This is worse than 1984.

himata4113 4mo ago

The fundemental problem is motivation not AI and this is simply the result of a larger societal shift that happened to correlate with the advent of AI. Personally I've never done any homework or assignments, when I was outside school it was over. However, this motivated me to do really well in tests which in-turn made me extremely active during the limited time I had in school and I became pretty damn efficient at absorbing information and picking things up. So on the surface at minimum it appears that we should stop grading on activities outside school. To be honest, what worked the best for me was what my history teacher did, 5 minute tests at the start of the lesson, then 10-20 minutes of teaching + self study assignments, remaining time is grading + answering any questions and if grading goes fast they usually had time to continue teaching for a few more minutes before the lesson ended. Group study was also heavily utilized as a form to take the load off themselves when they were overwhelmed from work due to 12th grade students especially right before exams, most of our classes became group study. All the students from their class always performed exceptionally well in nationals even though it was a mid tier public school. I will recognize that I am a bit special and that students are extremely varied I picked up on this when I discovered that someone in 11th grade still couldn't grasp the pythagorean theorem. I don't really have a solution to the motivation problem when phones are just so addicting and have an atmosphere of their own, the best way I can put it is that your child becomes an outcast if they can't play roblox because everyone in their school does which is a very real thing my friend experienced with their kids.

kakacik 4mo ago
> I will recognize that I am a bit special Should have started with that. No, your experience doesn't easily translate into some general good advice, you are probably way-above-average bright. I for example went through old school education with tons of home work and benefited greatly from having enough time to comprehend harder topics more deeply, without rush. Memorizing is another aspect, my mind is slow in that so I took my time, trying to remember everything at class' pace would not bring results. Having some homework ain't something horrible, it became daily habit as part of education and I certainly don't see it negatively in hindsight. It also teaches things like a bit of self-discipline, a trait thats very rare in young these days, and probably the most important personality trait in overall long term life success. It doesn't come on its own, but can be taught/self-taught quite a bit over time. Again, in hindsight, those similarly mentally equipped but lacking it, after few decades, performed in life worse to much worse (I don't mean just money but overall life situation and happiness/fulfillment)

galkk 4mo ago

Completely understandable. My 6yo kiddo recently realized that smart speaker (Google home) can not only play her favorite songs, but answer her homework questions. And it was something not that trivial, like “which animal from the list changes color of its fur when seasons change: tiger, arctic fox, something else”. And now I need to either disable everything or figure out how to turn that off for her.

lelanthran 4mo ago
> And now I need to either disable everything or figure out how to turn that off for her. Why? I tell me 6yo "That's for adults only, children are not allowed to use it" and not have to worry. Sure, he'll push boundaries here and there, but with some things he knows "No means no" and doesn't push those boundaries. I have literally tested this: left a cookie on the table (that he wants) and told him "You can eat that cookie after you finish the thing you are reading" and left the room. Teaching kids to not succumb to their instant-gratification instincts is part of being a parent.
- justanotherjoe 4mo ago
  You tested it, i doubt you authored it. A paternal twin can have one with good impulse control and another who's more instinctual. Even in the same family and upbringing.
  - lelanthran 4mo ago
    > A paternal twin can have one with good impulse control and another who's more instinctual. Even in the same family and upbringing. Sure it happens, but it's unlikely. It's why kids from certain cultures achieve better academic success on average than kids from other cultures, on average: the environment matters a lot.
  - kakacik 4mo ago
    At the end both will have to live in same society, and this society will not care whats their background and issues. Perform as expected and get reward, or otherwise not so much. Everybody can be taught some degree of behavior even if it may require different amount / type of effort, I refuse to believe it ain't true apart from most extreme cases.

AgentMasterRace 4mo ago

What about teachers using it to generate learning material that is just fabricated?

marton-laszlo-a 4mo ago

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jingpostmedia 4mo ago

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FlippieFinance 4mo ago

The only AI elementary school kids should be confronted with is any AI their Nintendo Switch uses. Let the kids be kids, man

delis-thumbs-7e 4mo ago
There’s very few sensible posts in this thread. This is one of them.

polnurfer 4mo ago

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yoz-y 4mo ago

Imo in elementary school they should not be using computers outside of a dedicated class.

utopiah 4mo ago
Computer literacy.

pedromlsreis 4mo ago

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pedromlsreis 4mo ago

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utopiah 4mo ago

I just had a discussion with 10 to 12 years old kids today. They are not using AI to learn, they are using it to cheat. It's not a moral judgement, it's what they, themselves, told me today in front of their peers. Initially they claimed it was an aid to get homework done, then their own peers asked few questions to clarify and they themselves came to the conclusion (after quite some pushback and mental gymnastic) that it was indeed to cheat. So... ask kids themselves, see what they do and what they say, it's fascinating.

greenoracle9 4mo ago

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tlogan 4mo ago

It is wrong to think kids should not use AI. They actually need to use AI the most. Childhood is the age when you constantly ask “why” until you get to the bottom of the problem. It is the age of enormous curiosity. But schools, teachers, and parents do not have enough time or knowledge to answer every single “why.” AI is here to stay, and I believe the future of AI is education. But that also means we need to change how we test students. We should bring back more oral exams and in-person writing exams. But to learn things please use AI.

Nathanba 4mo ago

It's just "rock and roll and video games are bad" popular nonsense. AI is the best learning tool you could possibly ask for, it's literally your own personal ultra knowledgeable teacher that has all day to answer questions from you. I remember being in school and the most I could hope for was to raise my hand and ask one (1) question sometimes. The teacher would then already be miffed if I asked another follow up and made sure to quickly keep talking so that I wouldn't ask anything else alongside all kinds of other social cues or just outright tell me to look at it at home. I remember falling behind in understanding some basic math concepts and literally never ending up understanding them fully. When you are a child nobody cares in the slightest, you are alone. How could AI possibly make this situation any worse? Life is already at the near maximum pain for children, you barely get to ask a question before you get shut down and you get to reread the same exact useless textbook explanation 30 times in a row. AI is a 100% net gain, it's like having 50 extra teachers on standby. Is having teachers suddenly a bad thing? Of course not. Especially not if the only reason you dislike the teachers is because you can't tell the child to use the teachers intelligently for maximum, fastest gain in understanding. In the future we should be getting rid of nearly the entire teaching position and instead be going with a model where human teachers are more like guidance counselors that can offer some extra experience and anecdotes from how things will be in real life, something that AI will inherently have less ability to do. All these restrictions are just made by adults who literally don't care to think about how life is for children and have long forgotten. They just want to give orders from the top without having to think about it. Is there a danger that children will abuse it? Of course, it's a massive danger. Without AI there is also a massive danger that children will never learn something properly because nobody has time to teach them. Does anyone care about that danger? Does anyone care that a child will waste years of its life in schooling that is boring? No because that damage is invisible to people who do not care, the children will become intellectually stunted and stop caring about learning or doing productive things. Life is full of dangers, the goal should be to use all the tools we have in their optimal way and if that includes teaching children how to use AI, when to use it and the value of understanding things then the time for that is as soon as possible. I have a feeling that all these complaints about AI come from people who themselves never learned the value of independent thinking and stopped thinking at some point. They went through schooling but with rote memorization and repetition and little to no curiosity or drive to do anything other than the exact homework that the teacher gave them. This is especially ridiculous: "In upper secondary education, from ages 17 to 19, students should learn to use AI appropriately so that they are prepared for further education and work, it added.". So when you are already an adult and went through over a decade of schooling you can finally use AI? When you are 14 there are children these days that are already making videogames, there is no reason whatsoever to hold children back. Stop treating children like their time is worthless. This is their life time, you don't get to take it away from them however you like as if they are dumb pets that just need to be taught how to behave.

akomtu 4mo ago

Good for Norway. AI turns your brain into slop real quick, especially in the formative years.

ronburgandy28 4mo ago

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