New York mayor bans AI in schools: “children need teachers and human contact to learn”

The mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani and the school registrar Kamar Samuels have presented a drastic policy destined to revolutionize the daily life of American classrooms. Starting next week, with the return to class, the largest school district in the United States will implement a one-year total ban on the use of generative AI aimed at students from second grade to eighth grade (corresponding to eighth grade).

The measure involves more 600,000 young studentsequal to approximately two thirds of the entire city school population, imposing the turning off or blocking the artificial intelligence modules in more than 38 previously licensed educational software, including the reading tutor Amira. As education counselor Ailish Brady said, the city will reject any IT product that does not allow predictive or generative functions to be turned off.

“The tech industry wants us to believe that artificial intelligence in primary education is not only inevitable, but necessary,” the mayor said during a press conference in Brooklyn. “We don’t think so. I have yet to see a study demonstrating the benefits of AI for elementary and middle school students, except of course for research funded by the same companies that profit from it. New Yorkers deserve to know that their children will receive a high-quality education. They deserve to know that their children’s data will not be exploited by big tech companies and that their growth will not be compromised for the profit of a multinational corporation.” Mayor Mamdani called the measure necessary to protect “human contact” in classrooms, arguing that children should develop problem-solving skills and social skills together with teachers and peers, rather than relying on artificial intelligence tools.

Personal displays are also almost completely prohibited

In addition to the stop on algorithms, the strategic plan defined by Zohran Mamdani and Kamar Samuels introduces a crackdown on individual devices to combat digital addiction. The guideline it all but bans personal displays between kindergarten and second graderecommending maximum screen time limits equal to 30 minutes daily for classes from third to fifth e 45 minutes for middle school students.

On the contrary, for high schools the administration has envisaged an approach oriented towards conscious integration: five AI pilot projects will be launched reserved for a sample of 50,000 students, supported by mandatory digital literacy courses to be carried out twice a year to teach people to distinguish opportunities and pitfalls of technology.

Political reactions and union positions

The city administration’s choice aims to remove minors from the data extraction carried out by technological multinationals. The position received the appreciation of the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, who underlined the importance of help children develop critical thinking without the cognitive overload of screens. He showed a more cautious opinion Michael Mulgrewpresident of the United Federation of Teachers, who, although judging the time restrictions positively, highlighted how the policy leaves operational doubts about how the Department of Education will demand guarantees directly from the software companies. Concerns were also raised by the city councilor Carmen De La Rosaby the state senator Kristen Gonzalez and by the representatives of AI Moratorium for NYC Schools Coalitionwho called for a two-year moratorium without exceptions.

Los Angeles also confirms the temporary blocking of generative tools

The measure adopted in New York is part of a national review framework which also sees the protagonist Los Angeles Unified School District. The country’s second largest education system has confirmed the temporary blocking of generative tools on all devices provided to students, extending the limitations they had already introduced in June eliminated tablets before second grade And blacked out platforms like YouTube during class hours.