alt Hacker News> 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.
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There is no universe where an LLM helps one learn to read. You need to be able to read first to use one, and worse yet, you need to be able to think critically about the outputs, not just decode and sound out the letters.
I understand the first part, but I don't understand the second one. It's probably my ignorance for not having children and being out of touch with schooling. When I was in school very little grading was based on homework, mostly was grading by testing in class. For example math, I'm absolutely sure it was 100% a few grading tests every semester. You could cheat by copying the homework of your classmates, it was the same set of problems for, but with 0 understanding, you would not pass.
Bloom's 2 sigma problem solved at last! But that's overestimating LLMs, our zeitgeist.
AI can't detect AI, not because AI undetectable, but because it lacks judgment. Its shtick is random generation; the proverbial monkey on a typewriter.
Learning is also impacted when homework/test questions are created and graded by AI.
The line of 90 degrees north latitude shouldn’t be visible on a map…
Why have teachers?
The AI might as well grade itself.
> take-home essay assignments
Typically there's not a whole lot of homework prior to Grade 7 anyways.
Homework levels between elementary school and start of junior might look something like this:
Division I / early elementary - no formal assignments should be made, though 5–10 minutes of systematic study or reading was recommended.
Division II / upper elementary - formal homework could be assigned at the teacher’s discretion, but generally should be reading or study-type work and not exceed about 20 minutes.
Starting from junior high - students are expected to study one-half to one hour per school night.I presume kids still learn to add 1 and 1, do their multiplication tables and long division before being given a calculator ?
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?
It's the same old argument about knives and technology. But we don't give children knives.
This is what schools enforce, second, even more important part is what parents do/allow/pay for at home.
Every single household I've seen benevolent use of phones/tablets/tv/computer/consoles (quite often all of it), kids were unruly, had shitty grades, living empty lives without good role models and very little passions or hobbies, and overall were more depressed than happy.
I do get why - its supremely easier to just throw tech at them and let them drown in endless cheap dopamine content, triple that for already-addicted parents. The whole principle of active screen itself is so overpowering and addictive compared to good old physical toys, drawing, paint, reading etc.
As a parent of young kids, its much harder to come up, continuously, with good motivating program out there, or even indoors, ie climbing. But - I didn't get kids to have easiest possible life, coursing through our short lives deep in comfort zone is a failure IMHO, thats not life well lived, that's life avoided. I am not kind to such parents - its the biggest achievement, or failure, in one's life, biggest challenges bring biggest rewards. Rather few people put in corresponding effort continuously, compared to careers, relaxing and other aspects of adult lives.
And then folks wonder why so many old people are sour, seeing in more life-successful others all the stuff one could/should have done if not so lazy is deeply depressing, usually amounts to biggest life regrets.
> and the best technology ever invented for learning.
This has been tested, many times over, and I have yet to see convincing evidence this is the case. In fact, despite this industry being on the scale of trillions of dollars, I bet you have also not seen convincing evidence of your statement.
Because those trillions of dollars aren’t going into research (well they are, but not into good research) it goes into propaganda, and this is one of the lies the industry tells people. The industry tells this lie so often that many people have started to believe it, just because they herd it so often it must be true.
AI is a terrible teacher though. It makes stuff up all the time, and for some subjects it has a remarkably low accuracy rate
> 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
Stupid people never have the appetite or ability to 'tackle' anything. It's their defining characteristic.
It's not more complex than stupid people in charge, stupid results follow. Smart people with integrity in charge, good things follow.
AI changes nothing.
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 tool to be useful.
AI is a tool for propaganda.
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