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Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools
- MisterKent 1mo agoGood. The more I use AI the more I feel like it will drag humanity into a local maxima that we'll never be able to escape from.
- ChrisArchitect 1mo agoTitle: New York City Bans A.I. in Elementary and Middle Schools non-paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/01/nyregion/ai-ban-schools-nyc.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-FA.Hu8D.YOA_utvxrl-U&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/01/nyregion/ai-ban-schools-n...
- Helloworldboy 1mo ago[dead]
- rmason 1mo agoThis makes about as much sense to me as banning all personal computers in the eighties from schools. You are putting these kids at a decided disadvantage.
- dymk 1mo agoKids can play on slot machines when they’re older. An 8 year old doesn’t need Claude.
- protimewaster 1mo agoIt's limited to "younger students", and keeping younger students away from computers also isn't a bad idea IMO.
- hgoel 1mo agoKeeping younger students away from computers is dumb, but we do need to go back to the basic computer literacy classes of the early/mid 2000s, e.g. typing, basics of desktop operating systems like the filesystem, using word, powerpoint etc. It's appalling how lacking high schoolers seem to be in these kinds of skills.
- esalman 1mo ago> Keeping younger students away from computers is dumb No. There's proven research that shows reading a book or writing with a pen or pencil is much more stimulating and beneficial compared to looking at a screen or tapping/typing on it.
- hgoel 1mo agoBut they also need to have computer skills if they're going to survive in this world... it's too late to teach them once they're old enough to have the safeguards removed.
- esalman 1mo agoIf you let them develop critical thinking skills, it'll actually be easier to reach them.
- hgoel 1mo agoYeah, I suppose we should hold off on teaching them everything that isn't critical thinking, lest they develop skills other than what is deemed acceptable by people like you. Maybe we should have them live in 15th century lifestyle towns! Wouldn't want them having any contact with this awful world!
- anonymars 1mo agoI think young exposure to real computers (where you create, and have to figure things out; not consumption machines) provides access to a level of fluency that is otherwise difficult or impossible to achieve, just like many other skills (language, music...)
- protimewaster 1mo agoI think that can be done without having them sit in front of a computer or even really using a computer, though. Lots of kids have stories about wandering over to a college campus when they were in middle school, wandering into a room with the keypunch machines, and learning about computers that way. Very few of those kids directly used a computer, but they learned it anyway.
- anonymars 1mo agoHow prevalent do you think are children that live within wandering distance of a college that lets random children enter and use their computers?
- protimewaster 1mo agoColleges with key punches? Probably pretty close to zero. My point was more that, I think it's incorrect to assert that it's necessary for kids to directly use a computer in order to effectively learn about them. We have tons of concrete evidence of kids learning to be excellent at programming and understanding computers without directly using one. It happened with the kids I described.
- SoftTalker 1mo agoSo give your kid an Apple-II or TRS-80 then?
- orwin 1mo agoI'm pretty sure we ran these experiments in France in the late 80s/early 90s, it was pretty clear that exposure to real computers was useless in elementary school, and even in middle school technology teachers weren't a big fans of teaching computer skills before 14 (basically around the same time as they taught tin soldering).
- GlacierFox 1mo ago[flagged]
- kolinko 1mo agoCurrent chatbots are better tutors than an average school teacher imho. Not saying that we should replace ones with the other ones, but I’d say from age 11-12 and up kids should be taught how to use AI well.
- nekiwo 1mo agoCommunicating with adults and handling the friction of conversing with others is a skill students need to gain, especially at this age. Talking to a machine that will always suit your style of talking isn't always good.
- jjk166 1mo agoThe purpose of a teacher is not to be a challenging conversational partner.
- azuanrb 1mo agoSure, if the kids want to learn. But let’s be honest, most of them, or even us, are just going to use the chatbot directly for the answer.
- jjk166 1mo agoIf the kids don't want to learn, and the schools aren't looking for anything beyond their ability to produce an answer, that's not an AI problem.
- lkey 1mo agoThere is significant evidence against this, and very little for it beyond your 'honest opinion'. A recent study showed just 2 out of tens of thousands of children in China improved their performance after beginning to use AI assistance. People will take the shortcut in front of them, absent enforcement, and this is how it works in work and in school. Putting it onto any individual to 'use it well' is to misunderstand the system that is being constructed.
- boredpeter 1mo ago[dead]
- jansport123 1mo agoi wouldn't let my kid use a phone or a computer till a certain age. age 1 - 11 is about having strong foundations in basics and these basics haven't really changed in a couple of decades at least. Reading, critical thinking, math etc... all don't need computers to a certain age. I say this as someone who got on a pc at age 10 and have made a living off being interested in computers.
- taybin 1mo agoGood. Kids need to learn how to think before letting other stuff do it for them.
- hackeraccount 1mo agoDo they? I mean so much of learning (certainly of school) is along the lines of "this is the way it is, don't worry about first principles just accept this" If there's learning how to think stuff going on I'm not sure I want the schools doing that, it seems more like the job of parents.
- tehjoker 1mo agoThank you Mayor Mamdani and the DSA. This is a major win for keeping children from losing their minds, retaining education quality, and promoting socialization.
- WCSTombs 1mo agoHere's another (non-paywalled) source for this news: https://abcnews.com/Technology/new-york-city-public-schools-banning-ai-middle/story?id=136134872 https://abcnews.com/Technology/new-york-city-public-schools-... The ban goes through eighth grade, and in high school apparently there's a specific AI literacy class. It's unclear from the article if that's the only AI in high school or it's just unregulated. My opinion: it's a good policy and frankly just common sense. - Students using AI risk offloading their cognition onto the AI and thereby skipping the actual learning process. - Teachers using AI likewise do a disservice to the students. In the middle of all that, there may actually be a version of AI that can help people learn without incurring the major downsides, but I've not seen any evidence of that in the current AI systems, to the point that an outright ban in the school setting makes sense. I'm heartened to see more education organizations think similarly [1]. [1]: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/academics/registrar/academic-rules/artificial-intelligence-policy/ https://www.law.berkeley.edu/academics/registrar/academic-ru...
- summermusic 1mo agoI can see the 2040 study already: “Schoolchildren who did not use AI in primary school show higher outcomes”
- kolinko 1mo agoI’d bet the opposite. There were some poor researches trying to confirm your guess
- anonymars 1mo agoWhat's your reasoning? Did iPads/Chromebook exposure make younger people better or worse at computers? Maybe if there are education-tailored AI models strictly limited to explaining and never giving the answer, but even then, how will you know when it's wrong?
- tartoran 1mo agoPerhaps when AI is better to just guide the student to slove a problem rather than spell out the answer for them. In that sense an AI tutor that is well designed for this specific task would be infinitely patient and explain in many ways till the student gets it. We're not there yet so I applaud the current ban.
- broodbucket 1mo agoIt's already beginning. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12232635/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12232635/
- Gigachad 1mo agoThere are so many things as a kid I did not agree with or understand but was forced to do anyway, and now as an adult am glad. Right down to being forced to wear a hat and sunscreen (in Australia). If I had ChatGPT as a kid I would have learned nothing.
- shoopadoop 1mo agohttps://fortune.com/2026/07/21/gen-z-cheating-homework-school-exam-scores-crash-post-literate-society-incentives/ https://fortune.com/2026/07/21/gen-z-cheating-homework-schoo... Higher homework scores, but _substantially_ worse test results. About what you'd expect, right? Friction is important for learning. Make the process too smooth and it slides right off the brain.
- spking 1mo agohttps://archive.ph/borIf https://archive.ph/borIf
- danbrooks 1mo agoSeems like a well designed policy. Currently for one year and up to the middle school level.
- petilon 1mo agoForget AI, silicon valley parents don't want their kids using phones and computers either. https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/silicon-valley-parents-leading-backlash-120000367.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/silicon-valley-parent... https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/technology/silicon-valley-tech-fans-children.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/technology/silicon-valley...
- VCFundedGenYer 1mo agoGood. We need this everywhere.
- sfpotter 1mo ago*moves back to NYC*
- juiceland 1mo agoI’m seriously transferring offices to be in NYC. My taxes are going up significantly and I don’t care.
- MattDamonSpace 1mo agoSeems premature but then again humans are always a bit skiddish around change Still, not shocking that the DSA stronghold that elected someone like Mamdani is going to be passionate against AI. Will be interesting to watch outcomes diverge over the next few years. If you’re gonna ban stuff, do it at local levels like this so we can see differences play out across many locations/districts.
- oldsklgdfth 1mo agoYou bring up politics when this topic is about technology adoption in education. Grew up in Greece and was shocked that calculators are used in high school math. An interesting note: "And teachers will not be able to ask A.I. to grade assignments." This prevents teachers from using it as well, which is an interesting angle.
- UtopiaPunk 1mo agoHow is technology adoption in education not political?
- oldsklgdfth 1mo agoIt can become political, like anything else. But isn't inherently. It does not attempt to answer some political or ideological question. The question is "do you want to teach the tool and its use or do you want to teach thinking manually". The west is under the impression that if you don't teach the tool then people will be unemployable.
- lkey 1mo agoThey will be teaching AI in high school. This ban is only for the lower grades. Even when they teach it, screen time will be limited to 45 minutes per week. It's not about 'passion against AI', it's a year waiting period. There isn't much evidence that AI improves student outcomes, and there's more cases showing harm, so the responsible approach is to wait for more information. Also, they've banned phone use for quite a while now, which I think most people agree is correct in a learning env.
- amclennon 1mo agoMakes sense. I had to learn how to add / subtract before I could use a calculator. Note: This policy doesn't seem to apply to high school
- carabiner 1mo agoYep, just like the tech elite. Peter Thiel limits his kids to 90 min/week screentime.
- legitster 1mo agoEven if you're pro-AI, there's a reason calculators are banned from math classes until a certain point. It seems like a no-brainer to have people learn on hammers before moving them to nailguns. I can't help but think of this Chesterton Quote: "It is, on the contrary, a thing analogous to writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly. I am not here arguing the truth of any of these conceptions; I know that some moderns are asking to have their wives chosen by scientists, and they may soon be asking, for all I know, to have their noses blown by nurses."
- rps93 1mo agoIm for this as I use AI in my current college classes to learn things quickly. Also, save money aka not have to buy/read the textbook. Using AI allows me to take and feed my notes to it and have it create multiple choice quizzes. Same for assignments where my teacher asks us to define terms. So far doing this I am able to retain things quickly and speak intelligently during the next class. So dont read the textbook, just learn what is needed and graduate. Mandami is definitely right on this as my new way of learning will get me A(s) and B(s) but im thinking i will miss a lot of important pieces of information.
- voxl 1mo agoSo you'd rather give money to the company that stole the copyrighted material of experts and academics instead of giving them money? Sure some textbooks are corporate greed schemes themselves, but many others are just the work of a group of professors
- Sebguer 1mo agothey literally said that they think Mamdani is doing the right thing and that they understand they're hindering their education by using AI the way they are, did you even read the comment before making your response?
- 1mo ago
- doodlebugging 1mo agoI agree with other posters that kids need to learn critical thinking skills at an early age. I hope we don't see Texas educators trying to take the opposite side of the coin and mandating AI teachers at all (or any) levels just to try to own some more libs in NYC. This state has enough problems.
- dayyan 1mo agoI remember a scene in Star Trek, where an AI is used to help teach the little Vulcan kids.
- krapp 1mo agoStar Trek isn't real.
- dayyan 1mo ago“Isn’t real” isn’t a rebuttal. It’s just refusing to think.
- wyre 1mo agoIt's a rebuttal in the same way that saying the Vulcans in Star Trek use AI in their classrooms. Star Trek is a fictional story in a fictional universe that doesn't have to follow the laws and rules of science, society, reality, etc for the sake of telling a story that fans will want to follow.
- jhbadger 1mo agoI think you miss the point of Star Trek, it, even more than most SF, isn't "really" about the future fictional or otherwise -- it is using the tropes of SF to make commentary on our society through analogy. That being said, I'm not sure the OP recognizes that Vulcans aren't entirely presented positively on the show -- they are generally viewed as missing part of life with their lack of emotions.
- dayyan 1mo agoToo many words. It's cool and fiction is how we stress-test ideas before they become policy.
- krapp 1mo agoNo one on Star Trek was "stress-testing" anything of the sort. Stress-testing only works in reality, where the stresses are also real, or even in a simulation of reality. Star Trek is neither, it's just fantasy. It doesn't test anything.
- mupuff1234 1mo agoBut I assume students already aren't allowed to just submit genAI output and afaik most classes don't involve computer use, so what's really the change?
- ElProlactin 1mo agoIt's interesting to see the difference (so far) in comments about banning AI versus banning social media.
- Spivak 1mo agoBecause the "in schools" changes the calculus massively. You see a similar reaction to banning phones and personal computers while in school. Kids can still access and use AI outside of school meaning the enforcement is entirely on the school and doesn't require massively a privacy invasion for adults by way of age verification. Schools already put children under (from an adult perspective at least) a pretty intense rules regime so this doesn't represent any kind of change—indeed it's probably better framed as a lack of a change from the status quo.
- pj_mukh 1mo agoThe dirty secret on NYC schools is that the upper-middle class tends to send their kids to private schools unless they can get their kids into some gifted/talented public schools. The real experimentation on what tools will and will not work is happening there under the watchful eye of wealthy hyper-involved (see: comfy jobs w/ adequate spare time) parents. I don't know what level of digital tools is best for which types of kids, but the public school system would be prudent in adopting the learnings from the private school system and making sure the best education isn't just available to the rich. The current mayor is mad-effective at his job but does have a habit of doing the ol' wink-wink nod-nod to keep his base happy. This (along with a pointless Waymo ban) sounds like one of those actions.
- jansport123 1mo agobigger reason to ban AI in public schools then. AI + neglectful parents is a disaster in the making.
- pj_mukh 1mo agoYes that would work out well if by this ban we could also properly fund schools to create enough teaching staff. But you and I both know that's not happening. So on the off-chance one of these tools (that even used AI in the background) could create a tool that actually worked well for, say, gifted public schools kids that don't need as much one-on-one attention, they could free up limited human teacher hours to give weaker kids more attention, that is no longer a possibility. That possibility, only remains for private school kids, who don't even need it in the first place.
- rotringlvr 1mo agoNyc public schools get $40k/pupil. If there aren't enough teachers, I dont think money is the issue. Even allowing for generous overhead a ridiculous small class size of 15 could afford $320 000/year salary. Its not the money.
- rotringlvr 1mo ago
- jmyeet 1mo agoThere's a far deeper and longer standing issue here and that's rent-seeking. We know what works in education. It's phonics and direct insturction, basically. But nobody gets rich that way so you end up buying into a worse system through two steps: 1. Education PhDs need to justify their existence. They do by reineventing what works. This is basically how we came up with sight words to replace phonics, which is largely responsible for destroying literacy. Whoever comes up with these schemes gets to get academic cachet for being a thought leader. They get invited to all the cool conferences and parties; and 2. Rent-seeking edtech companies end up creating solutions for things that aren't really problems. This long predated AI. It suffers from all the normal issues of corruption in government procurement. Politicians and superintendents are enticed ("bribed") to buy solutions that teachers are then mandated to use, forcing students onto devices to work a program with dubious results. You see this pattern play out in a ton of government R&D. For example, SMR reactors in nuclear power. There's no world that SMR makes sense. Nuclear plants benefit from scale. But behind all this you'll find a bunch of physics academics who pushed this idea to get status, some of whom then get hired by SMR startups and others get involved in government procurement. Everybody is grfiting. So while I welcome schools not using AI early on, that's barelly scratching the surface. And that begins with teaching literacy and holding students back until they can read sufficiently for their grade level.
- andrekandre 1mo ago> But nobody gets rich that way so you end up buying into a worse system software development is like this too; you can do fine without all the fancy ceremonies and tools as long as you get the basics right, but rent-seeking and consultants run rampant to everyones detriment
- natebc 1mo ago[dead]
- treebeard901 1mo agoIf AI has a major impact on the job market as some believe, then it would be interesting to see a society where AI related profits are used to provide free education for everyone who wants it. At some point they will begin running out of human created data for model training and schools with strict AI policies will be the best source of non AI data going forward. Thats kind of a symbiotic relationship that makes sense for students and AI companies. Once AI output begins replacing human output and the models begin training on it, there may be increasingly few places left for data that isnt likely to lead to a model collapse.
- delichon 1mo agoThere are some truly excellent initiatives leveraging AI as teachers, rather than as cognitive crutches, and it's important that they are not tossed out with the bathwater. Math Academy is one. I hope for a Cambrian explosion of variations of this approach. Imagine a resourceful and infinitely patient tutor guiding you through the most difficult concepts of your education, deeply attentive to your signals about flaws in your mental model, and feeding you carefully crafted clarifying challenges with engineered timing. AI feeding students the right answers is damaging, but feeding them the right questions at the right moment is the way forward.
- qotgalaxy 1mo ago[dead]
- rigrassm 1mo ago> There are some truly excellent initiatives leveraging AI as teachers, rather than as cognitive crutches, and it's important that they are not tossed out with the bathwater. It takes years to understand the effects of the changes we implement in our school systems and curriculums and this attitude of change it now and hope for the best later is what's gotten us to a point where high school students can't read at a high school level (and this problem was happening before LLMs). Your hypothetical utopia of education should not be tested out on the masses.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- josefritzishere 1mo agoThis is the right way. We need to teach critical thinking skills and not train kids to be helpless drones.
- _DeadFred_ 1mo agoWeird title. Should be: "New York City Bans A.I. in Elementary and Middle Schools" First sentence is "A new policy announced by the Department of Education bars younger students from using artificial intelligence, but stops short of a moratorium." Not sure how handfuloflight got "Mamdani Bans AI in NYC Schools" from that. I'm also seeing zero instances of "Mamdani" in the article?
- rayiner 1mo agoMamdani should investigate why NYC spends almost twice as much per student as the city of Zurich, Switzerland (which itself spends an enormous amount on education) but lags behind the U.S. average in reading and math test scores: https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025/01/29/naep-scores-show-recovery-in-nyc-fourth-grade-math-as-reading-holds-steady/ https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025/01/29/naep-scores-sho...
- consumer451 1mo agoIsn't Zurich far richer per-capita than NYC? I would think there is more than just what happens in a school that dictates the testing outcomes.
- rayiner 1mo agoNYC median income is about $80,000, while Zurich is $95,000. But my test-score comparison is between NYC and the U.S. national average. I'm just using Zurich as a data point for how much a rich, expensive non-U.S. city spends on education.
- consumer451 1mo agoI see that data is correct, but let's zoom in. There are lots of private schools for the richer, and that might help lead to this fact regarding NYC public school students: > 75.3 percent were economically disadvantaged [0] 75.3% = "if their family participates in specific economic assistance programs or meets distinct low-income thresholds." [0] https://www.schools.nyc.gov/about-us/reports/nycps-data-at-a-glance https://www.schools.nyc.gov/about-us/reports/nycps-data-at-a...
- gamblor956 1mo agoNYC has approximately several million more students than the city of Zurich. And several million more immigrants than the entire country of Switzerland.
- dirasieb 1mo ago
- mango7283 1mo agoAn apt analogy to me was the one I read that using AI to write is like using a forklift to lift weights at the gym - the point isn't that the weights need to be moved, it's to exercise your body.
- someguynamedq 1mo agoAI has been a profoundly useful tool in my learning.
- humanlity 1mo agoA famous CS teacher from NJU in China said something like this: If you do not use AI, you should leave the school now.
- tardibear 1mo agoCool story bro.
- andrekandre 1mo agoat some point we need to stop caring what china is doing and start doing what is needed for ourselves... this "china is doing x so we have to do y" china derangement is ruining everything.
- adi_kurian 1mo agoI am unsure what China's contribution has been beyond slave labour that destroyed the American middle class? I did like Parasite.
- SMAAART 1mo agoParents can still let their kids use AI when/where appropriate (outside the school's official curriculum). There's a lot more to life, growing up, and learning than what politicians do with traditional education. Agency is key.
- animal531 1mo agoI wish we can limit AI in posts such as here, and/or for some creators. As an example Two Minute Papers used to to be great but these days he's mostly covering AI advances, which to be honest become boring really quickly.
- rewgs 1mo agoGood. Classrooms need very little: good teachers, books, chalkboards, and pencil/paper. That's it. IMO the _material_ being taught is secondary; what truly matters is teaching kids to think, to be bored, to engage with something they don't love but do a good job anyway, to find things they _do_ love that might exist on the other side of some amount of difficulty. They need to be taught how to think, and to have some grit.
- seanmcdirmid 1mo agoIf Chinese kids are taught how to use AI from an early age, while American kids have to wait until they are in university, which ones are going to be make economically competitive when they become adults? I think we already know the answer to this question, I’m not sure what America plans to do about it, or maybe just fade away into irrelevance?