The Risks of AI in Schools Outweigh the Benefits, Report Says

Summary

The risks of using generative artificial intelligence to educate children and teens currently overshadow the benefits, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution's Center for Universal Education. The sweeping study includes focus groups and interviews with K-12 students, parents, educators and tech experts in 50 countries, as well as a literature review of hundreds of research articles. It found that using AI in education can "undermine children's foundational development" and that "the damages it has already caused are daunting," though "fixable." Because generative AI is still young — ChatGPT was released just over three years ago — the report's authors dubbed their review a "premortem" intended to study AI's potential in the classroom without a postmortem's benefits of time, long-term data or hindsight. Here are some of the pros and cons that the report lays out, along with a sampling of the study's recommendations for teachers, parents, school leaders and government officials: Pro: AI can help students learn to read and write Teachers surveyed for the report said AI can be useful when it comes to language acquisition, especially for students learning a second language. For example, AI can adjust the complexity of a passage depending on the reader's skill, and it offers privacy for students who struggle in large-group settings. Teachers reported that AI can also help improve students' writing, so long as it is used to support students' efforts and not to do the work for them: "Teachers report that AI can 'spark creativity' and help students overcome writer's block. … At the drafting stage, it can help with organization, coherence, syntax, semantics, and grammar. At the revision stage, AI can support the editing and rewriting of ideas as well as help with … punctuation, capitalization, and grammar." But, if there is a refrain in the report, it is this: AI is most useful when it's supplementing, not replacing, the efforts of a flesh-and-blood teacher. Co...