America's two largest school districts impose AI moratoriums

> It takes years to sort things out and by then the approach of the day has moved on.

What? Good approaches, definitionally, have quite a lot of staying power. This is true in most fields but especially in education where, it turns out, we don't really figure out net new approaches that are much better than the last ones very frequently.

Clearly it should, at least, never be the company that stands to profit from selling said technology to the government. Like you I am highly skeptical, the idea of classrooms is an idea that is over 5,000 years old. It's kinda been nearly perfected at this point where pedagogy mostly points toward self-sufficiency as soon as possible.

Also think it's extremely unethical to experiment on school children using tools or methods that can be detrimental to their development (see chromebook debacle, moving away from phonics). We kinda know what works very well in a public education setting, the constant experimentation does not help.

Experiment on adults that can consent, not children.

A graphing calculator for all knowledge work is just a(n artificial) brain. It’s not hard to see how offloading brain work to another brain makes your brain less powerful.

I’m not saying you can’t be intelligent in a world of LLMs but people who use the calculator analogy underscore the fact that the LLM isn’t just eliminating the drudgery of one subdomain of mechanical problem solving — every problem is one an LLM can provide and answer for, including what you should learn, what problems you should solve, what your next conversation with the LLM should be about. So they do pose at least a threat of people truly offloading indefinite amounts of their own critical thinking to models, and there’s also danger that such people will in general still be competent enough often enough (due to LLM competence) that they are hard to screen out of key decision making roles or even from highly profitable roles.

Yet there were times where I was not allowed to use a graphing calculator in school tests (mid 00's). Honestly. if you are completely reliant on a graphing calc in an AP calculus course, you're definitely not getting a 5 in the exam. There is a signifigant time pressure that does not allow for that.

We were not allowed to have graphing calculators in elementary or highschool (90s), either.

> Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work.

Can you plot a graph from an equation by hand?

If you can't, but you can use a graphing calculator to plot the graph then it seems like it has led to you not learning that skill.

And being able to look at an equation and plot a graph in your head is pretty valuable imo

> Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work.

A frankly hilarious statement given several key facts:

* You don't get and in fact are usually barred from using a graphing calculator outside of coursework designed around it

* Even when you DO use one, it is very often after years upon years of drawing graphs yourself. Analogous to LLMs even moreso than your core example, because to make use of an LLM in a way that is actually productive, you DO need to know what you're talking about with it, to suss out when it's made some bullshit up.

> 40 kids at a time

i wonder why that is. what kind of attitude towards the value of education would allow this. grok help me out here

> most kids are being educated by indifferent teachers, 40 kids at a time, with little to no opportunity to ask question

What absolute horseshit

I have met a lot of teachers in my life and I don't think I have ever met one that was remotely indifferent to their students. Its not like they're getting into it for the money :/

So let's get this straight: we have many underpaid, overworked teachers who aren't given the resources needed for students to succeed. Our solution to this, in lieu of better educational budgets (and appropriations of said budget), is to rely on the rugged individualism of primary schoolers to be motivated to just learn content by themselves. This being driven by trillion dollar interests who have the budget but not the incentive nor drive to actually make sure students succeed.

Meanwhile, private schools who have both budget and drive will teach kids who can afford it and teach them proper railguarding against such tools. Did I get your point of view correct?

i am suggesting that your interpretation of what a "need" is is wildly inaccurate

> a Socialist mayor

Who is that "Socialist" mayor you speak of?

> I'm suggesting that AI fundamentally meets a tenet of Marxist dogma

And why would be relevant to a democratic socialist?

If you are saying that AI would somehow be contributing to a socialist goal for Mamdani and you use Marx to advance that statement, kind of everything?