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Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

nytimes.com

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Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#41

Post by mushi_shi »

charcircuit wrote: post #39
legitster wrote: post #26

Even 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…

It's like banning teachers or textbooks from school. LLMs are the single greatest learning technology ever created.

Are you sure that taking shortcuts to information isn't potentially doing more damage to learning?

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#42

Post by jansport123 »

charcircuit wrote: post #39
legitster wrote: post #26

Even 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…

It's like banning teachers or textbooks from school. LLMs are the single greatest learning technology ever created.

technology seems to bifurcate outcomes - the top students seem to get much better than previous cohorts but the rest of them seem to get a lot worse.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#43

Post by anonymars »

protimewaster wrote: post #9
rmason wrote: post #5

This 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.

It's limited to "younger students", and keeping younger students away from computers also isn't a bad idea IMO.

I 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...)

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#44

Post by tartoran »

anonymars wrote: post #31
kolinko wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d bet the opposite. There were some poor researches trying to confirm your guess

What'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?

Perhaps 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.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#45

Post by jmyeet »

There'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.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#46

Post by jansport123 »

pj_mukh wrote: post #37

The 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 t…

bigger reason to ban AI in public schools then. AI + neglectful parents is a disaster in the making.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#47

Post by bugbull »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #35
legitster wrote: post #26

Even 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 can’t imagine how many shortcuts I would have taken as a kid/teen or stressed uni student if AI were an option. I can see even a well-meaning student stuck in this aspirational cycle of “I’ll do it myself next time, but right now I just want to catch up.”

There were certainly integral solving validators online when I took calculus in high school. At some point I gave up and just used that, because “the money is in web application development, I don’t need that calculus stuff”.

Big regret.

Edit: For reference, the regret came when I tried to do some RF related projects on the side. Those projects would likely have gone somewhere if I put some effort into even the basic calculus from high school.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#48

Post by all2 »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #35
legitster wrote: post #26

Even 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 can’t imagine how many shortcuts I would have taken as a kid/teen or stressed uni student if AI were an option. I can see even a well-meaning student stuck in this aspirational cycle of “I’ll do it myself next time, but right now I just want to catch up.”

This definitely would have been me.

I burned 100s of hours into my 400 level classes, some of those hours were completely wasted on things that I could never figure out how to get them to work.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#49

Post by jansport123 »

rmason wrote: post #5

This 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.

i 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.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#50

Post by jjk166 »

azuanrb wrote: post #25
kolinko wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current 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.

Sure, 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.

If 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.
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