Dinowitz questions students on AI access and appropriate balance in schools

Thank you all for your testimony.

I have a question.

First of all, you access Gemini today on your student account?

Yeah, in the library.

Yeah, I just want to share for the public that we've heard mixed, or I've heard mixed,

mixed things about what students have access to on their own accounts.

I myself went to a school yesterday and had access to Gemini and it also popped up on the Google search.

So thank you for sharing that, that it's not just me, that students who have come here still have access to that.

I want to ask a question though, you know, we hear a lot of

like the tech companies and even the DOE say, we recognize the concerns around AI, but we also recognize that companies

now in many cases require the use of AI, right?

That is, let's call it a reality of business these days.

What do you all think is the right balance, if any, of including AI in schools at all or recognizing its use in post-high school, post-college?

Do you think at all, and in what situations there would or would not be a place for it?

Oh, great.

Honestly, for me, I'm not sure what the best balance is to strike between AI education in schools and full AI bans.

I do know that AI literacy is an extremely important thing, both for the workplace, but also so that we understand how to use those tools responsibly.

But at the end of the day, this policy is still very vague, and we don't know how AI could be implemented in schools.

The policy itself says it's school and course dependent.

So we don't know to what extent we're going to have to use AI or to what extent AI will be integrated into all aspects of learning.

So it's important to have AI literacy, but the idea of AI being ingrained into every aspect of our education is worrying.

And also adding on to that, to be really very honest, this entire artificial intelligence or people were exposed to this AI thing only some years ago.

I would say even two years ago, people barely knew about AI, but so early, such a, such a, such a,

I would say recently known stuff coming into the educational system or everything that is surrounded by us is really very scary.

And also the students whom I talk to most of the time, most of the students don't even know that this even exists and this should be in the work.

And if this comes up, that's going to be really very hazardous for every single student.

And the word hazardous is going to be used here because that's going to impact in many ways.

many different ways in the case of their thinking, creative thinking, in the case of also what they're going to do in the future, and every other thing we could possibly think.

And also environment, which is also getting highly at risk due to all these policies.

And if there was, I mean, did you want to add something?

Yeah, I was going to add on and say, like, I also don't think there's, like, a perfect balance because I feel like in certain subjects, like when I mentioned my geometry class, AI was used to, like, perform diagrams, and they would, like, give you the answer choice, and it was wrong.

But for many other instances where it was used, like, it was right.

I think it would be easier for teachers to use it, but then again, it's still going to be integrated into children and, like, I don't know, teenagers.

And we're learning, like, the basics right now.

Like, we're not in college.

We're not in university.

So this is, like, our basics of learning.

And I feel like the more we integrate it into our lives, the more it becomes more personal for us.

It's not just at school, but at home.

And I think it also, like, should be applied to, like, what if, like, students are using it for emotional support?

Because, like, of course, like, you know, AI can be used to, like, I don't know, support students.

But it can also, like, have, like, deep emotional connections where students are forming, I don't know, relationships with AI.

And then when that happens, if, like, a student is struggling with their mental health, then, like, at what point is it to say, like, this is, like, a road?

robot and like at what point is like their mental health like at risk when chatting with robots that are just using their information to help the next robot yeah um you guys have given a number of reasons

i think i with which i agree with about the harms of ai uh you have the doe here and you're in a public

setting.

Alma, you mentioned like, you know, schools could be signing up for this and you wouldn't know.

And then, oh, okay, you're scheduled for this course.

I'm going to ask each of you, it's the same question.

If your school signs up for it, right, and you are placed in this class, what is one most important thing that you need from the DOE

in order to feel comfortable or safe or educated in a school that engaged in this pilot?

I think for me, first of all, I'm going to say context.

My school is under the CUNY system.

I go to Hunter College High School, so this isn't the same thing for me specifically.

Heard good things about CUNY.

I love CUNY.

I love it so much.

But if I had to take a class that integrated AI, I'd want to be able to check the DOE website and know this AI tool is being used and this was the exact process that it was screened.

This is where my data is going.

This is what schools are tracking.

And this is what these AI companies are keeping track of.

Beyond that, I don't feel comfortable using these AI tools.

And hopefully that never happens.

That's the first ever thing.

But before that, actually our parents should have the consent.

My parents or any other parents, they barely knows about this entire policy, how that works, how this is working.

Even there's this matter that is going on.

The more mature population are also having a hard time identifying what's the difference between AI and the real pictures and different other things.

But the fact that these kind of things are going to be implemented in educational system, there should be a necessity to ask our parents because it's also important that our parents'voices are being heard.

Our voices are also necessary to be heard because at the end of the day, these decisions are going to be made for us and we are going to be experiencing them.

So it's really very important that our parents and we also know that what is actually going on and we are aware of all the situations.

Yeah, I absolutely agree.

I think like my parents or like parents in general, they don't understand the full extent of AI.

I think because like, I don't know, younger people are more exposed to the internet or use it more.

I feel like they don't get like to what extent like it would be implemented into our classrooms.

So like if my school like signed us up for like a, I don't know, an AI talk course or whatever, I would feel like kind of like exposed in a way because when I'm taking tests, like when I'm like getting my grades, like, you know, AI is going to track that.

And then what if an AI company that my school signed up with uses it for another AI company?

It's just like, I don't know, supporting capitalism in a way.

So I don't know.

It's kind of like using information, like student private information, like the grades that you get to like, I don't know, like be put into other places that go to the higher ups, you know?

So I think just getting parents more involved in like how their children are being exposed to AI.

No, I want to thank this panel, and I know the deal we heard exactly what you said.

And it's certainly aligned with what these committees are interested in, which is accountability and transparency and, of course, parental involvement and empowerment.

Thank you.

I just want to add, too, thank you all so much.

Your testimony today, your answers to the questions just show how critically you're thinking about these issues and gives me a lot of hope that we can solve these problems with you all on the front lines doing the work and leading the way.

So thank you all so much.

Great job today, too.