New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has prohibited the use of AI in classrooms for pre-K–8 students for one year. Students in public high schools are to complete AI awareness courses twice a year, where they will assess AI-related bias, risk, ethics, and impacts on skillsets.
The decision affects nearly 600,000 students.
Under the new policy, students in second grade and below will have restricted screen time, and students in grades 3 through 5 will be capped at 30 minutes. Students in 6th grade through 8th grade are recommended to have only 45 minutes of screen time.
“Children need teachers and human connection in order to learn and grow. They need to develop skills alongside their peers, build relationships with educators and wrestle with tough problems on their own,” Mamdani said in a statement. “The tech industry wants us to believe that A.I.-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary. We do not see it that way. That’s why we’re implementing a moratorium on generative AI for students in 2-K through 8th grade and spending the next year studying the impacts of this technology.”
The moratorium follows a school district in New York pausing a plan to deploy an AI-powered teaching assistant in classrooms. The state’s Education Commissioner, Betty Rosa, sent a letter to Salamanca Superintendent Mark Beehler, writing that the “Department remains concerned about the effect that a humanoid robot may have within a high school classroom.” She explained, “Many parents, teachers, and stakeholders are understandably concerned about the presence of artificial intelligence technology in classrooms, particularly when it involves robots that resemble humans.”
