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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

#491

Post by graemep »

ifwinterco wrote: post #457
cornholio wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

From a UK perspective it's very weird that kids in America don't learn to write joined-up. How can you write sufficiently fast in an English or History exam (where you have to write a whole essay in limited time) if you're writing one letter at a time like a 6 year old?

I agree, but its also somewhat weird that the main reason kids learn to write cursive is for exams - its not a skill most of us use in adult life, and even for kids writing outside exams is often done on computers (e.g. my daughter's A level history coursework was done on, and submitted from, a computer).

Some of the exam boards are trialling computerised exams where exams are completed on computers instead of paper. Its cheaper for them to not have to handle paper (which gets scanned anyway). Its long been possible as an accessibility arrangement but it might become the norm.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#492

Post by embedding-shape »

wccrawford wrote: post #218
embedding-shape wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wanna start off by saying that with young unformed minds, it does probably harm more on average than it helps. But particularly for spelling and reading, it might maybe actually help? To be efficient with AI and LLMs you need to be good at least two things, reading and writing. One easy way of getting better is by reading a lot, and writing a lot. Maybe if we coax the kids into understanding (believing?) that be…

No, you can talk to them, and have them talk back. And it's really easy. You don't need to be good at reading or writing to use it.

You mean you can place transcript/dictation in front of them, so you don't have to type your words but you can speak them, and the LLM will receive text? If so I'd still argue it's important to be able to read and write to be able to use them effectively, but I have to also be honest, I never met/seen anyone who couldn't read/write and was using an LLM, I might be very wrong here.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#493

Post by bebe83939 »

bborud wrote: post #481
bebe83939 wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we clearly disagree on many things. People from EU already have residency in Norway, and some are not planning to stay there permanently. One reason to avoid native language (outside of waste of time), is to avoid Barnevernet. It is much harder to take child away from parents, into permament Norwegian foster care, if it does not even speak local language.

So let me see if I get this: we need AI in Norwegian schools so immigrants don’t have to learn Norwegian or English, or else child protective services will take away their children? It isn’t so much that you and I disagree. It is more that you disagree with reality. To the extent you are aware of reality.

> or English

I never said english, just Norwegian. Many people are fine with english only education, but goverment will still demand Norwegian lessons.

> we need AI in Norwegian schools so immigrants don’t have to learn

No, you need AI so kids who do not speak Norwegian, can learn to read and write. It is more important than forcing them into Norwegian first.

AI also comes to spotlight with homeschooling.

> else child protective services will take away their children

Yes!? I admit my informations are precovid, perhaps it is different now (at least the economy in Poland is much stronger, and there is less incentive to work in Norway). But Barnevernet has horrible reputation in Poland.

Common legal advice (when one of the parents works in Norway) is to avoid ties to Norway when it comes to kids, not to establish long term residency for kids (rotate kids every second semester and holidays back to Poland), avoid norwegian language...

It is much harder for Barnevernet to pull their stunt, if you do not give up Polish residency!

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#494

Post by charcircuit »

Hamuko wrote: post #458
charcircuit wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is GPT-3. Modern models are rewarded based off the accuracy of their responses.

Wait, have we solved hallucination already?

We've gotten better at it, but it's not a problem that can be solved (ignoring solutions like saying I don't know to all questions).

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#495

Post by habagav »

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;…

It’s not complex. One must first learn HOW TO LEARN before they can use any tool to help them learn.

There’s no substitution for human connection (social media) and there’s no substitution for traditional learning (robot teachers).

Everyone who wants to “disrupt” this fundamental human quality is chasing delusion. If you want to help, pay teachers a couple billion from the hundreds-of-billions going into AI maybe?

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#496

Post by Oreb »

somenameforme wrote: post #415
hparadiz wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My teachers were frequently wrong too and spoke with authority on subjects in hindsight they were frankly ill equipped to teach. Part of learning is understanding how to reason through these types of issues. It's a common problem solving problem in the work place just the same.

I think this is a false equivalence, by some extreme margin. Teachers may occasionally have some fact or whatever incorrect, but especially at lower levels it's going to be exceptionally rare, and often based on a logical foundation that is otherwise invalid for some reason, like whether 1 is a prime number or not. By contrast LLMs constantly get things wrong and once they get something wrong will begin weaving that…

My own experience from elementary school was that teachers being wrong was shockingly common. There is no subject in which I would trust any of my elementary school teachers more than a state of the art LLM. This was in Norway. I’m guessing you were privileged to grow up in a place with better quality elementary education.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#497

Post by azangru »

ifwinterco wrote: post #460
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;…

The obvious way to square this circle is to go back to how things used to be: less emphasis on coursework and more on old-fashioned tests in an examination environment with just pen and paper. You can cheat on your homework all you like, but you'll completely fail the exams. On the other hand, students who use LLMs to augment their learning will do fine

> You can cheat on your homework all you like, but you'll completely fail the exams

This might sound principled, but we need to recognize that school administrators are incentivised to have as few kids as possible fail their exams; and consequently, so are the teachers. Either exams will change, or the teaching will change.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#498

Post by VorpalWay »

IshKebab wrote: post #472
ifwinterco wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious way to square this circle is to go back to how things used to be: less emphasis on coursework and more on old-fashioned tests in an examination environment with just pen and paper. You can cheat on your homework all you like, but you'll completely fail the exams. On the other hand, students who use LLMs to augment their learning will do fine

This is definitely what's going to happen. But there is still a problem - people (not just children) are fundamentally lazy and put things off. People always leave assignments until the last minute. I used to smoothly transition from "I've got plenty of time, no need to start" to "there's not enough time to do it, there's no point starting". They will 100% just use AI for the whole year and then panic and fail the ex…

In what countries were the exams only once a year? When I grew up in the 90s in Sweden we would have tests and exams frequently, usually at the end of each module. This continued all the way through university. I think we had 3 separate exams for the first math course (which lasted a quarter of a year, so roughly one exam per month).

(Though they didn't give formal grades for the first several years of elementary school, which I'm not sure was a good idea.)

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#499

Post by intended »

joe_mamba wrote: post #468
intended wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt... https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01947-1 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... This also links back up to the Ironies of Automation, which came out decades ago. The reports from teachers for the past few years have been pretty stark, with kids completely obviating homework. Homework is exercise. If you bring a fork…

>Homework is exercise. If you bring a forklift to gym you end up moving weights but not building muscles. In countries like Finland kids don't get any homework. Though their society and school system optimizes more for child happiness, not winning international math Olympiads where you need to cram to get ahead.

> Even if the Finns don't need it, research suggests it makes a positive difference. Prof Susan Hallam from the Institute of Education says there is "hard evidence" that homework really does improve how well pupils achieve. "There is no question about that," she says. A study for the Department for Education found students who did two to three hours of homework per night were almost 10 times more likely to achieve five good GCSEs than those who did no homework

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005

Finns appear to have a school system that works in a manner that suits their nation, and was reformed decades ago.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#500

Post by Hendrikto »

ori_b wrote: post #166
nunez wrote: post #155

Spend a few minutes on the teacher subreddits: /r/teachers and /r/professors, specifically. AI has been a disaster for student outcomes and educator performance, more or less across the board. It should be banned in education, but there's no way to enforce that without increasing educator workload substantially (eliminating homework and re-working lesson plans around that; moving tests and projects back into the clas…

Banning it in classrooms isn't going to fix things, not when adults are broadcasting to students that (in the actual words of Sam Altman) "intelligence will be too cheap to meter", that (in the words of Darius Amodei) half of white collar jobs will be gone by the time these students graduate school, and so on. If intelligence is too cheap to meter, mental labor is a losing proposition. We've also spent decades emphas…

I would not build my philosophy on the marketing talk of a well-known impulsive liar. Sam, by his own admission, does not even know that much about LLMs, but he is so good at sales that somehow people take what he says for gospel anyway.
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