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It’s a bot ban.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a ban on artificial intelligence in Big Apple schools for the upcoming school year — with Hizzoner boasting the prohibition is the “broadest” in the country.
The mayor said a full moratorium on the use of generative AI would be in effect for kids in the new 2-year-old “2K” childcare program up through eighth grade, but there would be an exemption for some pilot programs open for high schoolers.
The restriction will affect 600,000 children as classes start next week while 50,000 high school students will have access to five limited pilot programs with established screentime maximums.
“It does not matter how profitable a product is if it doesn’t help our students learn and grow,” Mamdani railed at Brooklyn STEAM Center, a technology and manufacturing focused vocational school.
Administration officials noted that certain exceptions to the ban would be made for students with disabilities, English as a Second Language students and children in career readiness programs like computer science.
Members of the pilot program would still be supervised by teachers across the five programs and have varying capped screentimes: Quill for English, Edia for Math, Brisk Teaching, Playlab and Intel’s AI-Ready Schools.
High School students will also be required to complete 45 minute long AI literacy training modules twice-a-year, warning about overreliance on the emerging technology.
“This is to ensure that students understand the risk and misinformation, overreliance on what it means to protect their ability to think critically without a tool doing it for them,” Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said.
Samuels announced that students through second grade will not have lessons requiring electronic devices while recommending screen caps of 30 minutes per week for grades three through five and 45 minutes for grades six through eight.
The mayor said that “close to 40” current Department of Education services will have their AI functionality turned off as part of the ban. Companies which cannot disable their AI features would have their products completely removed from Big Apple schools.
Gov. Kathy Hochul called the new restrictions a “bold move” during at an unrelated press conference on Long Island.
Hochul went on to tout a statewide cellphone ban as an effort that has improved schooling and students’ mental health. The Empire State is now exploring AI bans similar to the city’s but made clear discussions are still in the early stages.
State Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn) introduced legislation last month that would require offering students in pre-k to fifth grade screen-free learning while students from sixth grade through 12th grade would have access through a shared computer cart model.
The bill would allow high school students individual device access if they have permission from their parents.
That legislation would also create a “right to analog learning,” which would allow parents to opt-out of assignment-based screentime when a reasonable alternative is available. AI would be removed school-issued laptops.
“To ensure learning truly comes first, we need comprehensive, statewide regulations that put thoughtful guardrails around the use of tech in schools,” Gounardes said in a statement, commending the mayor’s “crucial” first step.
A new group including students, educators, elected officials and experts dubbed the Technology in Schools Coalition will meet throughout the year before issuing a report recommending levels of AI use in future years.
Additional reporting by Brandon Cruz
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