> 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.

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.

> Facing a broad decline in education test scores, the government in 2024 banned smartphones from schools and has given teachers back more powers to enforce discipline in the classroom.

I remember seeing an nyt article where there was mixed results on cell phone bans. While they increased socialization among students, the school didnt see better test scores.

We'll have to see if a ban on AI can improve test scores-I am bullish on the idea tho

> They can play with AI at home

Actually, in Europe, Gemini is officially not available for kids even at home [1]. In some countries like Germany, the restriction applies until 16 [2]. I find unsettling that even for supervised account, parents are forbidden to let their kids learn how to use Gemini, even between 14 and 16 yo.

Note that this restriction does not seem to appear from other AI company. So from outside, it looks like unsolicited interference from Google in the parental education choices.

[1]: https://support.google.com/families/answer/16109150?hl=en#av...

[2]: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1350409?sjid=7871...

13? there is no reason a minor should use a brain rotting technology like AI, in fact, AI for pretty much most teens is way WAY more damaging than even tiktok ever was.

Connect the dots also banned, though there is some discussion of loosening the rules to allow interpolating up to four points.

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 ever allowed? Did it get too hard to enforce and they gave up on it until recently?

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> Facing a broad decline in education test scores, the government in 2024 banned smartphones from schools and has given teachers back more powers to enforce discipline in the classroom.

Isn't that expected in most countries in Europe? There's an aging overall population that is shrinking and immigration is rising. So you get a progressively rising percentage of immigrants among school students, many of those coming from 3rd world countries with non-functioning education systems.

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 point.

"and has given teachers back more powers to enforce discipline in the classroom.

A big hooray for that."

I don't suppose they are allowed to use physical violence again, still I would like to know what exactly you are cheering here for?

You mean chatgpt style AI won't help them with those skills?

If a human parent or teacher can help with skills like reading, an AI system can too, once it's trained and designed to do so. (How good are humans at teaching reading anyway?)

Why is this the most upvoted comment, yet when the UK repents teens form social media it’s met with “aDulTs arE bEiNg monItoRed”.

I agree with Norway here, and it’s slightly exhausting to see people attack any country that’s trying to protect kids as somehow coming for everyone’s supposed sovereignty.

I care about the youth and know they are in the midst of a culture war with adults, leave them out of it until we figure out a path forward.

edit: (crazy to see +11 on my comment, and also -1 when refreshing. Clearly my comment is divisive. This is honestly validating that adults simply cannot find common ground in this topic - especially HN)

Norway spent two decades digitizing classrooms and is now unwinding it. Seems a bit shortsighted and reactionary although I think they are trying to do the right thing.

Plus "Generative AI" isn't one single thing. Using it to write your essay is cognitive offloading but using it as a Socratic tutor that gives immediate feedback and adapts to the student is closer to the thing education research says works.

There's an equity angle as well. A school ban doesn't ban AI at home. It bans the equalizing version. Kids in educated, rich households will get AI exposure from parents. Kids without that won't get it anywhere, because the one place where the field is leveled has opted out. If AI fluency becomes a differentiator in the labor market infrastructure which is very likely a 7 year exposure gap sorted by household class is the opposite of what public education is supposed to be for.

(edit: 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.)