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Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

reuters.com

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Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#91

Post by pertymcpert »

irishcoffee wrote: post #77
simonw wrote: post #56

> 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 the…

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 po…

Yes, there's also a push to ban all computers in classrooms because data is showing that it's of no benefit and if anything is a negative effect on education.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#92

Post by simonw »

irishcoffee wrote: post #77
simonw wrote: post #56

> 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 the…

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 po…

> Kids can read, write, and comprehend text at 8

A sizable portion of the US adult population effectively can't read, write and comprehend text.

https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/2023/national_results.asp for 2023:

> Between 2017 and 2023, there were increases in the percentages of adults performing at the lowest proficiency level (Level 1 or below) in both literacy and numeracy: in literacy this percentage increased from 19 to 28 percent and in numeracy from 29 to 34 percent.

The literacy proficiency levels section on https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp describes what Level 1 means:

> Adults at level 1 are able to locate information on a text page, find a relevant link from a website, and identify relevant text among multiple options when the relevant information is explicitly cued. They can understand the meaning of short texts, as well as the organization of lists or multiple sections within a single page.

28% of US adults are just at or below that level.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#93

Post by cyberax »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #41
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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 t…

I think AI could (and by some students probably already is) be used to help a student better understand the material, and faster than you could before. I still recall some parts of Physics taking a while to click, and often having to reread different sections of a textbook to try and understand the what and why behind something. The biggest issue is a child has to want to do that, since they also could just ask the A…

A crucial part of learning is struggling with understanding and overcoming problems by yourself. AI removes that part.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#94

Post by FinnLobsien »

Cpoll wrote: post #61
FinnLobsien wrote: post #53

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 an…

> 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. There's not so much to learn they can't put it into a high school course. Adults currently in the workforce haven't been using AI since they were in elementary school, and they're adjusting fine.

I would disagree that they’re adjusting fine. So much of the stuff we see now is full AI slop clearly created with the first output of ChatGPT. It’s like saying we don’t need to teach kids about the internet because older generations grew up without it and they’re scrolling TikTok.

a) what’s the actual percentage of professionals who actively use AI? It’s much smaller than we think in tech.

b) what percentage of those people understand the very basics of how LLMs work (e.g. token prediction, context windows, etc)

c) what percentage of those people understand AI Agents (or any of their ingredients (APIs, credentials, etc.)

You quickly arrive at a tiny fraction that has a real clue about what they’re doing.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#95

Post by FloorEgg »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #54
FloorEgg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think one balances a lack of nuance with more lack of nuance. One avoids nuance for clicks or to propagate a narrative, sew division, distract, etc. Again. As I said in both my comments, I'm not criticizing the ban, I'm criticizing the absence of any communication regarding a plan for researching potentially constructive uses. As a reader, I can't tell if the Norwegian leaders have no plan, or if they didn't…

Eh, if the politician thinks this is the clarity of language necessary to send the message, I think that’s fine. Studying this and that can come later. It’s not like anyone is banning that research.

And I guess that's a big part of my frustration. I don't know what the politician actually said. I don't see any link to the/an official statement in the article.

I'm just an old man shaking fist at clouds.

I'm sitting on a mountain of evidence (n=44,000) that used in a very specific way and context AI accelerates and improves lasting learning outcomes. Th3 data is new, but the science that explains it actually goes back decades, predating AI - it's based on pedagogy from texts such as How People Learn (NRC).

My data also shows that students using AI the wrong way perform way worse - the performance gap is widening between students who want to learn and struggle (and use AI to optimize struggle) and students who want instant gratification and use AI for shortcuts.

So I know that if they truly slammed the door on this potential then they threw the baby out with the bath water.

But I don't know the truth because Reuters doesn't report the truth, and that's what tips me from concerned to frustrated. But I guess by complaining about modern journalism standards in a thread about banning AI I'm breaking HN guidelines. Time for me to log off...

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#96

Post by bborud »

bebe83939 wrote: post #89

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…

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?

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#97

Post by FinnLobsien »

fma wrote: post #66
FinnLobsien wrote: post #53

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 an…

>using LLMs for massive parts of the jobs they grow up to do These are elementary school kids...if they start using AI in 6th grade, they have 6 years to learn AI before graduating high school.

Fair point!

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#98

Post by kklisura »

solid_fuel wrote: post #73
LtWorf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's inevitably your fault for prompting incorrectly or using the wrong model.

"You just have to repeat the prompt 3 times and then spin around counter-clockwise twice! That always works for me. You obviously just don't know how to prompt the model correctly." Every time I see LLM enjoyers yapping on like this, it just reminds me of people trying to read tea leaves. There's all these goofy little rules about how to structure the prompt and how mean or nice to be to get it to work optimally, but…

Instead of prompts, let’s call them incantations.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#99

Post by beejiu »

irishcoffee wrote: post #77
simonw wrote: post #56

> 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 the…

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 po…

When I was 8, I could use the Internet at school but every website was whitelisted.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#100

Post by zemvpferreira »

irishcoffee wrote: post #77
simonw wrote: post #56

> 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 the…

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 po…

From what I can tell the average school at best can aspire to teach kids how to work and how to socialize. That's it. I'd personally be very happy with computers mostly going away from school too. Most actual learning and exploring will hopefully happen at home.
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