Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school • Hacker News Board

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#421

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 6:49 AM UTC

cornholio wrote: post #391

truncate wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree! For anyone who still thinks kids should use AI, another argument to make is we are still figuring out AI (hence the constant debate on it, hype, uncertainty, boundaries of its capabilities etc etc). I don't think anyone with right mind can disagree with that. Keeping that mind, wouldn't it make sense to at-the-very-least tread with caution when it comes to kids.

The counterargument is that kids will live in a world different from our own. For example, in many countries children lost the ability to write cursive; that used to be a critical skill comparable to literacy itself. But in our current society, that's no longer the case and you can be very successful without it, but there are other skills, such as using technology, that became critical. Any definitive claim to know w…

But how do you know that letting kids use AI at a way earlier age is the right way to equip them for the world that they would live in? You don't even know what that world will be like, so you can't even draw the conclusion that teaching them AI today will create career success in the future.

And then there's the other solid supporting arguments:

- Humans today were able to comprehend and use AI as soon as ChatGPT became popular so kids today will be able to pick it up quickly as grown-ups.

- "Using AI" isn't really a skill because there isn't much to learn beyond typing to a chatbot and reading the output (creating agentic workflows are very much for power users).

- The form of AI tech today might not even be the same as its form in the future, so you're already teaching them something obsolete.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#422

Post by scotty79 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 6:51 AM UTC

dosisking wrote: post #377

theptip wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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;…

AI has existed for decades. The average person has just discovered it / had it forced upon them. And just a small-subset of AI. The average person does not use real AI. And AI is not even well-defined. Education is more about indoctrination, than it is about actual learning. AI will be used as a tool as a way of 'shaping' the mind of young people. Similar to using standardized textbooks. AI is too much of a political…

> AI is a tool for propaganda.

In my experience so far it's less of a propaganda than basically any other medium massively consumed today. It might become it one day though, like all othe media became it.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#423

Post by fatata123 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 6:57 AM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #291

tacomagick wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs are able to talk for a very long while now. Have you ever used Gemini as an assistant? It can even put in related images about your query and while it can use an improvement it can spell more or less.

It's far from clear that this helps you to learn anything. More likely it's a way for most people to avoid having to think or learn.

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Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#424

Post by somenameforme » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 6:59 AM UTC

intended wrote: post #378

tacomagick wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate with an example?

https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt... There’s another study by MSFT on a similar topic, and yesterday there was an article from Nature shared here on HN.

I'd add to it that most of the studies showing significant negative effects of LLM usage are on adults. This stuff is going to fry kids' still rapidly developing brains in a way that will make the COVID school lockdown kids look like they had it good.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#425

Post by simonw » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 6:59 AM UTC

NDlurker wrote: post #339

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…

I don't understand what the controversy is in the US about banning phones in schools. I graduated highschool in the mid 2000s and cell phones were just starting to gain adoption in my town in the last couple years I was in school. I don't recall anyone using a phone in class, but Game Boys were definitely not allowed. I was surprised when I found out that kids were regularly on their phones in class. Why was that eve…

I've heard a big problem is the parents - they want to be able to communicate with their kids while they are in school, so many parents oppose phone bans.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#426

Post by charcircuit » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:01 AM UTC

javascripthater wrote: post #371

charcircuit wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe my eyes more than studies. I have learned so much, so fast through the process of talking with LLMs.

Such as?

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.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#427

Post by scotty79 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:03 AM UTC

JimsonYang wrote: post #243

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

Maybe homework should be handwritten again? OCRs got good.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#428

Post by somenameforme » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:04 AM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #354

NDlurker wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what the controversy is in the US about banning phones in schools. I graduated highschool in the mid 2000s and cell phones were just starting to gain adoption in my town in the last couple years I was in school. I don't recall anyone using a phone in class, but Game Boys were definitely not allowed. I was surprised when I found out that kids were regularly on their phones in class. Why was that eve…

a large florida school district banned cell phones in schools, and after two years, the total benefit that was measured to be likely caused by this was +0.9 percentiles on their standardized achievement test. in comparison, if you study ONE HOUR for the SAT, you gain approximately 0.9 percentiles on the test. how do dozens if not low hundreds of hours of time you are not spending on your phone at school translate to…

Just ignoring the flimsy SAT metric, there's something most aren't considering in these sort of data. Cell phones enable and are fairly widely used for all sorts of cheating. Banning them gets rid of that, and so if there was no positive effect from a phone ban you'd actually probably expect a slight decrease on scores because of this effect.

So the fact that basically every school region that bans phones is seeing marginal to moderate gains is just huge. And as others have mentioned, test scores are but one aspect of this. Breaks where kids are playing and interacting more regularly are a million times better than ones where everybody whips out their screen and turns into a zombie.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

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Post by galkk » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:06 AM UTC

bebe83939 wrote: post #124

zemvpferreira wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many kids in Norwegian schools do not speak Norwegian or English. Kids need "computers" just to translate what other kid is saying.

No, they don’t. Especially in elementary school.

My living example - my kiddo didn’t speak a word in English until 4.5 years, when she went into preschool. Russian speaking home and daycare do that for you.

After 9 months in American preschool, she completely switched to English language as her primary. 2 years later, and she speaks Russian with strong accent.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#430

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:08 AM UTC

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #263

raincole wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If intelligence is too cheap to meter, selling your mental labor is a losing proposition. In a world like that, why would anyone value an education? The ban is for elementary school . I don't know about you, but when I was 11, what motivated me to go to school definitely wasn't the idea that I could monetize my intelligence later on.

11 year olds don’t want to go to school.

What is your point? Are you going to subject your parenting to their whims or are you going to be an adult and discipline them into doing what is right for them?

Granted, an 11-year old who doesn't want to go to school is already symptomatic of many years of failure of parenting, but 11 is such a young age and there's certainly plenty of room to stimulate their curiosity. What kind of an adult would deliberately raise their children to know so little of this world?