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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

#241

Post by theptip »

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…

> Generative AI is not going to help them with those skills.

I think it's more complex than this.

AI is both the best technology ever invented for avoiding learning, and the best technology ever invented for learning.

The cat is out of the bag. If teachers are asking for take-home essay assignments in 2026 then students are going to use AI and learn nothing. "AI detectors" are nowhere near reliable enough to be fair; they have well-known false-positive weaknesses that disproportionately disadvantage ESL students. The status quo is not viable, I just don't see it as being workable to ban AI at home. (If they just mean that kids shouldn't be using ChatGPT during class I can get behind that I suppose.)

On the other hand I believe that if we figure out how to teach AI to be a better tutor, we can get the equivalent of 1:1 personalized education for everyone. The potential is huge. Unfortunately this requires a complete rethink of how the curriculum is structured, and my read is that the public school systems (both teachers and government agencies) mostly don't have the resources or appetite to tackle this.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#242

Post by sumeno »

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…

> If we want to ban models in school, ban laptops/chromebooks with internet.

Now we're talkin'

I'm all for it, let's teach kids the fundamentals of the world without relying on computers before we introduce them

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#243

Post by JimsonYang »

bko wrote: post #13

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?

A kid gets homework to do a writing assignment online. Kid goes on chatgpt. "Chatgpt do this work, heres the assignment' ctrl c + ctrl v Chatgpt spits out a good answer.

Kid spent no time doing homework and learned nothing

Or imagine a reading log(typing out what you read) to encourage a kid to read, you have AI that can copy and paste your homework for you

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#244

Post by ori_b »

ryan_n wrote: post #234
ori_b wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think they're too illiterate to read what industry leaders are saying? I assure you they're not.

Hm maybe I was sheltered or something but I was definitely not reading what industry leaders were saying when I was under 13. I don't think I really even knew who industry leaders were at that time...

I was definitely reading articles online by the age of 13. This is not exactly a small part of the discourse.

I'd expect, at this point, it's rather hard to avoid hearing about AI and its impact.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#245

Post by throwaway2037 »

pertymcpert wrote: post #91
irishcoffee wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is also a push to ban certain childhood vaccines amoungst crazy people in the US. What is being said here, really?

Example: what if Internet access was removed, but the computer remained? It would still be very useful.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#246

Post by abujazar »

froh wrote: post #183
abujazar wrote: post #169

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.

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.

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.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#247

Post by gpt5 »

solid_fuel wrote: post #229
gpt5 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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…

Please do share how education policy has materially changed in the last couple of years instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks?

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#249

Post by wffurr »

theptip wrote: post #241
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…

> Generative AI is not going to help them with those skills. I think it's more complex than this. AI is both the best technology ever invented for avoiding learning, and the best technology ever invented for learning. The cat is out of the bag. If teachers are asking for take-home essay assignments in 2026 then students are going to use AI and learn nothing. "AI detectors" are nowhere near reliable enough to be fair;…

There is no universe where an LLM helps one learn to read. You need to be able to read first to use one, and worse yet, you need to be able to think critically about the outputs, not just decode and sound out the letters.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#250

Post by chalupa-supreme »

raincole wrote: post #230
simonw wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if they turn on voice mode, which is pretty excellent these days (at least in ChatGPT and Gemini.)

I do 100% support banning voice mode for school. (Again mostly for the socializing... or anti-socializing aspect.)

We need to remember there are going to be human admin tasks that still need human interaction and critical thought into what you read and write. Adult users of these tools already accept AI outputs without too much thought in varying scenarios.

As a child, your willingness to question a tool that’s already better then you at most tasks probably isn’t going too high, and if you go through early education without exercising critical thinking… well we can point to cursive reading/writing as an example of a skill that completely disappears from a generation when not practiced enough.

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