What's this about?
New York City is banning AI use in elementary and middle schools — younger students specifically, not the whole system.
Why draw the line by age?
Because the argument is about skill formation, not about the technology. The case for restriction is that you cannot outsource a capability you have not yet built: a child who has never composed a paragraph unaided has nothing for the tool to amplify. The case against is that fluency comes from early exposure and restriction produces a disadvantage. Both are real, and the age line is an attempt to have it both ways — build the foundation first, add the tool later.
What's the community saying?
HN 142 points, 119 comments
- The strongest objection: this makes about as much sense as banning personal computers from schools in the eighties, and puts these kids at a decided disadvantage.
- The rebuttal that lands: "Kids can play on slot machines when they're older. An 8-year-old doesn't need Claude."
- The most substantive thread argues something different from both — bring back the basic computer literacy classes of the early 2000s: typing, filesystems, word processing. High schoolers are reportedly appalling at these.
- A related argument about young exposure to *creative* computing rather than consumption machines, and whether that fluency can be built any other way.