Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins/Futurism. Source: Getty Images
AI models are being launched in schools around the world as part of a large experiment on children with uncertain results.
Now, the latest research offers a clue about the effects of technology on children’s education, and it’s not promising. according to a new study According to the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education, AI poses profound risks to children’s social and intellectual development – and the consequences could be dire.
“At this point in its trajectory, the risks of using generic AI in children’s education outweigh its benefits,” the report says, which should give schoolteachers across the US pause. Their use of AI increased from 34 to 61 percent.
The year-long project reached this surprising conclusion after conducting interviews, consultations and discussion panels with 505 students, parents, teachers, education leaders and technology professionals in 50 countries, as well as reviewing hundreds of other AI studies.
One way AI models are undermining children’s education: Children are imposing their thinking on AI models, even as 65 percent of students surveyed expressed concern that this trend will lead to cognitive decline.
“It’s easy. You don’t need to use your brain,” one student told the study’s researchers, summarizing the danger of over-reliance on AI tools.
The danger is that when children burden a model with their thinking, they become uneducated learners who passively accept the AI model’s output. They may also begin to forget what they learned in the classroom as AI models retain memories and information for them.
“If students can replace their actual learning and their ability to communicate what they know with something that originates outside of them and get credit for it, then what is really their purpose in learning?” said one teacher in the study.
And because these models are always available, and sometimes sycophantic, children are not learning proper social skills from chatbots when it comes to dealing with difficult situations, according to the study. Furthermore, these models undermine relationships not only between teachers and students, but also between children and parents as children feel they can tell chatbots anything – which can sometimes have lethal effects, as seen in news reports of children dying by suicide after being exposed to AI interactions.
“They create an illusion of connection that is difficult to distinguish from real synergy,” an anonymous panelist told the report’s researchers. “Young people may be attracted to AI because it is demanding, frictionless, and always available. But relationships, at their core, are not about spontaneity. They require conversation, patience, and the ability to sit with discomfort. We learn empathy not when we completely understand, but when we misunderstand and heal.”
More on AI in education: The promotion of AI in schools by tech giants is a huge, morally bankrupt experiment on innocent children that will likely end in disaster
