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

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#431

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

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;…

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

Yeah, right. Did you forget a /s

https://chatgpt.com/share/6a363b6d-92ac-83ea-a619-41b2ecd9f5...

This is a popular game, still doing sales almost 18 years after release, with dozens of wiki fansites containing all the information, and with hundreds, if not thousands, of reddit postings... and it falls apart on the first answer!

No. Kids in school should not be using AI, because:

1. They won't be using the latest models, and

2. They can't tell if the info is accurate

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#432

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

alchemism wrote: post #370

Nux wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Return to pen and paper, particularly for testing. Extend school time for doing supervised "homework" that doesn't involve the Internet. Like that?

Yes, make the teachers on $25-35K annual salaries do /more/ work for no extra money. I'm sure that will fix education.

While a bit hyperbolic this is a major issue.

“Workload” has been a constant argument for just about any tech product we acquired at school. I’m very conflicted about this issue to be honest. I’m a member of one of those parent management boards type things, not sure what’s it called in English.

One the one hand I know how busy teachers are, on the other I also know how they never work to 5PM have twice my vacation days, while somehow never being able to meet to talk about issues. We get one ten minute session every few months at best.

If you put pressure on them they call in sick for weeks and good luck finding a replacement. I’m deeply worried that if teaching as a whole doesn’t get it together we will slowly be forced to use AI for everything because of lack of alternatives.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#433

Post by truncate » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:10 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…

>> Any definitive claim to know what are the right things kids should learn in a moment of rapid technological shift is probably garbage and just a projection of our own biases.

I'm not really sure what point you are making here. We can talk about stuff based on what we know now. AI definitely isn't there yet. Even adults are figuring it out, the limits of its capabilities and shortcomings. Its not even been 5 years, and we want to change everything everywhere.

So if we don't know if we should or should not, and take into account all the hype, marketing, hype, advantages and some potential disadvantages (which are quite serious) why not just go ahead when there is more confidence.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#434

Post by creesch » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:12 AM UTC

hgomersall wrote: post #417

lostlogin wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went through a Steiner school from pre-school to end of high school. It’s highly opinionated and very controlling initially . When you paint, you start with one colour. Then another day you get the next (there were only primary colours, because of course). You eat at your desk, then you’re allowed to play. This was dropped after a year or so. You don’t learn to read until you’re 7, etc etc. However, by the end of h…

Yeah, I we considered a Steiner school because I think that extensive play is a super critical part of a good education. The problem is you also need to be able to be part of the mainstream system at some point, and it felt like it didn't necessarily quite meet that goal.

Also worth considering is that it is part of a broader ideology of Anthroposophy which sometimes aproaches semi cult status in how people identify with it. A lot of the principles of Steiner schools are actually pretty cool, but sending your kid there, depending on the school they will also be dealing with the more esoteric bits of all of this that have very little to do with didactic or pedagogic sound principles.

Some if it includes some schools teaching some of the more racists views of Mr Steiner.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#435

Post by galkk » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:13 AM UTC

Completely understandable.

My 6yo kiddo recently realized that smart speaker (Google home) can not only play her favorite songs, but answer her homework questions. And it was something not that trivial, like “which animal from the list changes color of its fur when seasons change: tiger, arctic fox, something else”.

And now I need to either disable everything or figure out how to turn that off for her.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#436

Post by scotty79 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:15 AM UTC

solid_fuel wrote: post #67

sisve wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reduces completion time by 30% This is probably the big problem, or at least one of them.. If you use less time on learning, it will probably be harder to remember what you learned also. We need to spend some time to make it stick

The behavioral issue I see is that LLM users tend to immediately reach for an LLM and do their thinking in concert with it. This tempts users to approach problems by first feeding them into the LLM and then simply following the route the LLM lays out, which does improve task completion time for tasks that the LLM can simply regurgitate, but it stops the user from developing the actual critical thinking skills that sc…

> reach for an LLM and do their thinking in concert with it

This basically models how the intellectual work is going to be overwhelmingly done in the future.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#437

Post by yard2010 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:17 AM UTC

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…

AI is not the internet, it's a stochastic parrot that lays golden eggs for its shareholders.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#438

Post by lelanthran » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:19 AM UTC

Jimmc414 wrote: post #176

Saline9515 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please define "AI fluency"? From what I see, it's mainly being able to write and read at a high level, and having a strong media litteracy and critical reasoning sense something you don't need AI for. And having no TV and no smartphone at home and at school is likely the best way to acquire it.

By AI fluency I mean basically knowing how to drive the tools, an intuition for what the tools can and can't do, when to use AI vs doing it yourself, plus detecting when output is wrong, knowing what to verify, etc.

> By AI fluency I mean basically knowing how to drive the tools, an intuition for what the tools can and can't do, when to use AI vs doing it yourself, plus detecting when output is wrong, knowing what to verify, etc.

It's AI; by definition alone, those who don't know how to use it will reach competence within minutes, mastery within days.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#439

Post by scotty79 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:23 AM UTC

solid_fuel wrote: post #87

LtWorf wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, norwegian kids would probably fail because they don't have a clue how much 50 feet are.

> To be fair, norwegian kids would probably fail because they don't have a clue how much 50 feet are. I... are you an LLM? The distance doesn't matter - you probably don't want to walk to the car wash .

I did walk to a car wash. Automated one. To look at how it worked. I don't drive to a car wash often. Maybe once in few years. I don't see the point. The car is out in the elements all the time. It gets clean and dirty randomly.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#440

Post by lelanthran » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 7:24 AM UTC

galkk wrote: post #435

Completely understandable. My 6yo kiddo recently realized that smart speaker (Google home) can not only play her favorite songs, but answer her homework questions. And it was something not that trivial, like “which animal from the list changes color of its fur when seasons change: tiger, arctic fox, something else”. And now I need to either disable everything or figure out how to turn that off for her.

> And now I need to either disable everything or figure out how to turn that off for her.

Why?

I tell me 6yo "That's for adults only, children are not allowed to use it" and not have to worry.

Sure, he'll push boundaries here and there, but with some things he knows "No means no" and doesn't push those boundaries.

I have literally tested this: left a cookie on the table (that he wants) and told him "You can eat that cookie after you finish the thing you are reading" and left the room.

Teaching kids to not succumb to their instant-gratification instincts is part of being a parent.