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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

#581

Post by habagav »

theptip wrote: post #568
habagav wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I agree that the human touch is valuable. I disagree that humans are required to bootstrap meta-learning; I think it is quite deeply wired into the human brain and there is no reason that we can’t create digital gyms that give opportunities to learn the same insights. I also disagree with the essentialist position that the best education possible must be pure-human provided. Maybe if cost is no object and you have a…

Well, what we’re seeing in society is the opposite effect. Kids with phones and AI bots are doing, on average, terrible in school compared to folks who didn’t have those growing up.

University professors will likely agree that AI makes students worse at learning overall. No need to cite this there are articles all over the place.

So whatever solution you’re talking about, even when purpose-built, should be replaced by higher paid teachers. Ultimately the AI-First model is about moving money into mega-corps and paying teachers less.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#582

Post by jplusequalt »

theptip wrote: post #568
habagav wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I agree that the human touch is valuable. I disagree that humans are required to bootstrap meta-learning; I think it is quite deeply wired into the human brain and there is no reason that we can’t create digital gyms that give opportunities to learn the same insights. I also disagree with the essentialist position that the best education possible must be pure-human provided. Maybe if cost is no object and you have a…

>very clearly enabling GPs to broaden their diagnostic ability, spend more time connecting with patients, and reduce their paperwork toil, when deployed with care.

Where is the data on this?

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#583

Post by jplusequalt »

theptip wrote: post #560
amelius wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same old argument about knives and technology. But we don't give children knives.

But we do give them bicycles, so the lesson would be “give them technology that is safe to use”. And then we are back to the discussion at hand none the wiser; what forms of AI are safe to use for kids?

The kind that doesn't allow a child to anthropomorphize it, or rely on it for learning.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#584

Post by kubb »

simonw wrote: post #580
kubb wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you care about trends? Like an increase from 19% to 28% between 2017 and 2023?

Sure, but if that trend turns out to be an increase in non-English speakers it tells us less about the state of literacy, which is the thing I'm interested in here.

The national results page literally has a section where it shows separate results for native-born and non-native born participants. You claim that you're interested, so it's strange to see you speculate about what "turns out" when the answer is so conveniently available.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#585

Post by jplusequalt »

theptip wrote: post #563
mike_hock wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ask a question. > Ask two follow-up questions. > Ask about a seeming contradiction between the original answer and the answer to the second follow-up question. > Get congratulated for raising such a great point and get parroted back your objection as a "correction." Useful as a learning aid if applied cautiously but maybe not the "best thing ever."

I thought the dichotomy would make this clear, but the claim was not that however you use AI, it’s the best thing ever. To be more explicit: _used correctly_ and to the fullest of its capabilities, AI is the best technology ever invented for learning. If you don’t believe this as a technical HN person at the epicenter of this technology’s capability set, I probably can’t persuade you. But you can do a lot better than…

>_used correctly_ and to the fullest of its capabilities

How often do children do things the "correct way" or know how to get the most out of a thing?

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#586

Post by aerhardt »

theptip wrote: post #558
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

It’s one dimension, I agree. Though, for essay-based courses I’m a little skeptical about writing under time pressure. My thinking here is that you might want to also introduce more “viva voce” (verbal defense) style tests. These have been expensive to administer but my hunch is that you can scale these with AI administering the first round, random human review or participation. This feels like a better endpoint than…

I studied in a French Lycée in Spain. We did dissertations, brutal 3h live writing tests. There was no problem with it other than the difficulty. Kids didn’t come out screwed up or impaired.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#587

Post by theptip »

habagav wrote: post #581
theptip wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the human touch is valuable. I disagree that humans are required to bootstrap meta-learning; I think it is quite deeply wired into the human brain and there is no reason that we can’t create digital gyms that give opportunities to learn the same insights. I also disagree with the essentialist position that the best education possible must be pure-human provided. Maybe if cost is no object and you have a…

Well, what we’re seeing in society is the opposite effect. Kids with phones and AI bots are doing, on average, terrible in school compared to folks who didn’t have those growing up. University professors will likely agree that AI makes students worse at learning overall. No need to cite this there are articles all over the place. So whatever solution you’re talking about, even when purpose-built, should be replaced b…

I agree that we are seeing the negative effects of AI-done-wrong. (The best technology ever invented for avoiding learning, as I said.)

I don’t agree that this means all potential or current uses of AI are harmful.

I also don’t agree that simply paying teachers more is a solution. This lever has always existed and as a society we fail to pull it. So for the majority of people who use public schools, improving quality at current spend levels would be a major win, and we should explore the obvious possibilities here.

I’m also pretty skeptical about your culture-war assertion that this is about wealth transfer to mega-corps. This can easily be a sovereign AI product. (I also never proposed “AI first” FWIW, I am a proponent of humans augmented by AI for this and most use-cases. Banning AI entirely operates at the margin of forbidding mostly-human use-cases from using any AI.)

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#589

Post by theptip »

jplusequalt wrote: post #585
theptip wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the dichotomy would make this clear, but the claim was not that however you use AI, it’s the best thing ever. To be more explicit: _used correctly_ and to the fullest of its capabilities, AI is the best technology ever invented for learning. If you don’t believe this as a technical HN person at the epicenter of this technology’s capability set, I probably can’t persuade you. But you can do a lot better than…

>_used correctly_ and to the fullest of its capabilities How often do children do things the "correct way" or know how to get the most out of a thing?

That’s our job as educators, not the kid’s. “The correct way” obviously requires scaffolding.

Re: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary school

#590

Post by theptip »

aerhardt wrote: post #586
theptip wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s one dimension, I agree. Though, for essay-based courses I’m a little skeptical about writing under time pressure. My thinking here is that you might want to also introduce more “viva voce” (verbal defense) style tests. These have been expensive to administer but my hunch is that you can scale these with AI administering the first round, random human review or participation. This feels like a better endpoint than…

I studied in a French Lycée in Spain. We did dissertations, brutal 3h live writing tests. There was no problem with it other than the difficulty. Kids didn’t come out screwed up or impaired.

I agree it’s an option. I did some essay exams at Uni too. I just don’t think we should assume that the old cost/benefit calculus still applies and this is the best way to test e.g. English Lit or Philosophy.
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