New York City is cracking down on the use of AI by roughly two-thirds of its students when schools open next week. The City’s public school system is planning to impose a one-year blanket ban on the use of generative AI to teach students through eighth grade. Companion chatbots that claim to offer emotional and mental support will be banned for all students.
“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,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a press release. “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.”
For high schoolers, NYC will limit their AI use to five pilot programs that will be rolled out to 5% of the public school student body, and new, twice-yearly AI critical thinking modules that will roll out to all students. “The two 45-minute modules will introduce students to what AI is and is not, as well as AI-related bias, risks, ethical considerations and impacts on careers and future skills,” the Mayor’s office said in the press release.
The five limited pilots will include Quill, which will be designed to “support close reading, text analysis and the use of evidence to support claims” in English language classes; Edia, which will assist math lessons; and Brisk Teaching, which will be available across subjects for teacher-created activities. The use of each will be limited to no more than 10 to 20 minutes per week.
Students will also have access to Playlab, which will teach them to “examine AI outputs for bias and reasoning, and Intel AI-Ready Schools,” which will direct them to “identify community problems and develop AI solutions through semester-long projects,” the Mayor’s office said.
The guidelines will restrict teachers’ use of AI, as well. Teachers will only be able to consult AI tools for operational tasks like lesson planning, translation and communication, and not for grading or counselling students.
The New York City school district is the nation’s largest, with the new rules set to impact roughly 600,000 students when they take effect next week. The Mayor’s office said that it will form a coalition of students, educators, parent leaders, elected officials, advocates, union partners and experts to assess the efficiency of the new guidelines.
Kids and teens are increasingly turning to AI chatbots for help with schoolwork, mental health advice, or even emotional support. But the technology’s impact on the still-developing minds of kids is still not well understood. Psychologists have deemed children and teens to be particularly vulnerable to the chatbots’ negative mental health consequences, often dubbed AI psychosis. Some high-profile cases involving minors and sustained chatbot use have ended in tragedy.
Recent studies have also suggested that increased AI chatbot use could be related to a decline in cognitive ability.
Faced with the mounting evidence and unhappy with the school district’s previous draft guidance, a group of NYC parents had been demanding an even longer and more comprehensive two-year moratorium on generative AI use in schools.
The guidelines come as both New York City and the state take a harsher stance on AI, from data centers to chatbots. Earlier this summer, New York became the first state to issue a moratorium on data centers. State lawmakers also recently passed a landmark AI safety bill that will require leading AI companies to develop, publish, and adhere to formal safety protocols.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who is quoted in the press release for commending the Mayor’s office for releasing the guidelines, has been outspoken about AI chatbots and the dangers they pose to minors as well. “Limiting access to AI chatbots for young people and making sure there are disclaimers so they understand this is not a real person that you think you’re having a relationship with: that’s an example where I think tech needs to be regulated,” Hochul told The Verge’s Decoder podcast over the weekend. “It went out of control and now the government has to perform a function to protect our residents and our young people, the most vulnerable.”
The new mandate also includes restrictions on the use of individual laptops and tablets. Students in preschool through second grade will no longer be able to use individual devices at all, while older elementary school students will face time limits of 30 to 45 minutes a day. But exceptions will reportedly be made for students who are actively learning English or are living with disabilities, as well as for the use of coding software.