OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft Back Bill To Fund 'AI Literacy' In Schools (404media.co)
- Reference: 0183124422
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/05/04/1934208/openai-google-and-microsoft-back-bill-to-fund-ai-literacy-in-schools
- Source link: https://www.404media.co/literacy-in-future-technologies-artificial-intelligence-act-adam-schiff-mike-rounds/
> A new, bipartisan bill [1]introduced (PDF) by Democratic Senator of California Adam Schiff and endorsed by the biggest AI developers in the world -- including OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft -- [2]would change the K-12 curriculum to shoehorn in "AI literacy ," something that young people and teachers alike already hate in schools. The Literacy in Future Technologies Artificial Intelligence, or LIFT AI Act, would empower the new director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to make grant awards "on a merit-reviewed, competitive basis to institutions of higher education or nonprofit organizations (or a consortium thereof) to support research activities to develop educational curricula, instructional material, teacher professional development, and evaluation methods for AI literacy at the K-12 level," the bill says.
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> It defines AI literacy as using AI; specifically, "having the age-appropriate knowledge and ability to use artificial intelligence effectively, to critically interpret outputs, to solve problems in an AI-enabled world, and to mitigate potential risks." The bill is endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers, Google, OpenAI, Information Technology Industry Council, Software & Information Industry Association, Microsoft, and HP Inc. [...] The grant would support "AI literacy evaluation tools and resources for educators assessing proficiency in AI literacy," according to the bill. It would also fund "professional development courses and experiences in AI literacy," and the development of "hands-on learning tools to assist in developing and improving AI literacy." Most importantly for real-world implications, it would fund changing the existing curriculum "to incorporate AI literacy where appropriate, including responsible use of AI in learning."
[1] https://www.schiff.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/LIFT-AI-Act_Text.pdf
[2] https://www.404media.co/literacy-in-future-technologies-artificial-intelligence-act-adam-schiff-mike-rounds/
Start with regular literacy, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
21% of US adults are illiterate. 56% read below a 6th grade level. 2/3 of 4th/8th graders not proficient in reading; recent declines post-2019/2022. We don't need smartphones and AI in schools at all. What they need is to go back to chalkboards, physical textbooks, and homework. The only thing that needs tweaking is to add AI detection and resistance to their assignments (ie.. do more in class, in person). Schools that do this [1]get consistently better results [arno.uvt.nl] than the ones that focus on technology.
[1] https://arno.uvt.nl/show.cgi?fid=141012
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Melania's [1]on board [youtu.be].
[1] https://youtu.be/h01Z2LLtw7U&t=124
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That's funny, because [1]so is Ron Paul [ronpaulcurriculum.com]. You'd think something so important as educating kids would be a top priority but it seems in reality, preserving benefits for retirees, like 20-year retirement plans, from public schools is much more important. That's what we actually do while achievement scores continue to degrade. So, that's what our leaders actually value.
[1] https://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com/
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Trump loves the uneducated....
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Especially the young ones who don't bite his pecker.
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Based on what Stormy said...it was probably more of a nibble, not enough to bite as such.
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I'm thinking more of the early teen he tried to rape.
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Is this different from, say, 50 years ago? or 80? Or 30?
Just great (Score:4, Insightful)
> ... Fund 'AI Literacy' In Schools.
"Learn to Code" becomes "Learn to Prompt" /s
Important: Teach the students not to call it slop (Score:1)
As Satya Nudella often said: Stop calling it slop or even Microslop. You have to learn that AI is an important tool on your ladder down.
Stupid is (Score:2)
As stupid does.
A Positive Slant (Score:3)
Kids need to be ready for the world they are going to enter, and it is going to contain AI. In the late 90's we taught kids about computers, the internet, and programming. At the time there were many jobs that didn't use a computer daily or at all, including in the office. That was very good instruction and prepared me for what I was going to work on when I hit the workforce in about 5 years.
If they are just adding instruction on what AI is, how to utilize AI, including that it isn't always correct and that we need to be careful with the implementation, then I see no reason schools shouldn't cover this topic.
I even think middle schoolers should be taught about social media. They could use /. to illustrate many important points.
The devil is always in the details. I haven't read the bill or TFA.
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I came here to say the same thing. LLMs are not going away, and are almost as ubiquitous as search sites. Kids should know what they are getting into.
We can be skeptical about the involvement and motivations of the tech companies, but it's better to have the schools have some say in the messaging about this stuff.
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At least they'll be ready to laugh, in a knowing way, at all the AI hype. And then cry at the huge power bills and general waste of money on all those useless "data centres".
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A lot of business happens over drinks. Thus, children should start building their liquor tolerance while still bottle fed, so they can be on the bottle their whole lives. This message has been brought to you by AA and the Liquor Advisory Board.
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> Kids need to be ready for the world they are going to enter, and it is going to contain AI. In the late 90's we taught kids about computers, the internet, and programming.
Yeah, that's why the average member of the public has such great coding skills. And they are great at saving their work, and making backups, and adding attachments to emails, and and and....
Tell Schiff What You Think (Score:3)
If you live in California, please take a moment (as I just did) to tell Schiff exactly what you think of him selling out the nation's children in exchange for more $$$ from OpenAI. He may be (ok, no "may") a corrupt politician ... but he still cares what his constituents think of him.
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I truly don't believe that. Politicians want votes ... well, really they want to keep being politicians ... but that requires votes!
In our democracy, campaign contributions buy votes, but at the end of the day votes are the goal, not money. If Schiff learns that the money he's getting is losing him more votes than he can buy with it, he'll reverse his position as quickly as Trump can say "TACO".
[1]https://www.schiff.senate.gov/... [senate.gov]
[1] https://www.schiff.senate.gov/contact/
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Politicians protecting their popularity and winning the election, are not the same thing. Following the will of the voters works because the voters care about results, not ideology: US billionaires have spent trillions teaching voters the opposite: Unfortunately, it's worked in the states most able to sabotage stable government.
As X/Fox News/Trump proves, US politics is about buying mind-share and thus votes. It's already known that the biggest spender wins the most votes. Except for Trump, who had b
All hail our new AI overlords :o (Score:2)
Current AIs are not truly intelligent. They encode training data as tokens embedded in a high-dimensional vector space. The positions of these embeddings, together with learned weights in the attention mechanisms, capture statistical associations and contextual dependencies between tokens.
Combined with user input, these patterns generate new tokens that are decoded into text. Consequently, their accuracy is fundamentally limited by the quality and content of their training data, which consists largely of
The irony of it all... (Score:2)
I'd bet a small wager that all the education and skills training required to become a really good prompt engineer that can instruct non-sapient AI into doing the algorithmic functions and tasks that leads to success and profitable outcomes are the same ones that comprise a well rounded (although not deep or specialized) education in the arts, sciences, language, logic, reasoning, research, and all the other traits of a 'Renaissance Man'.
We could very well see the AI education pipeline eventually start spitt
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LLMs are useless in the hands of those who know significantly less than the LLM.
The LIFT AI Act is about Equity :o (Score:2)
ClippyAI: The LIFT AI Act, championed by Senators Schiff and Rounds, isn't about giving Big Tech a foothold in our schools; it’s about equity. Students in affluent districts are already using agentic AI to tutor themselves and manage their workloads.
Without federal funding for a standardized AI literacy curriculum, students in underfunded districts will be left behind, entering a workforce where "AI-native" is a prerequisite for entry-level roles.
We aren't just teaching them to use tools by teac
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> Students in affluent districts are already using agentic AI to tutor themselves and manage their workloads.
Hahahahaha!
changing too fast (Score:2)
They want this in k-12 grades? The AI landscape is changing so fast anything we teach those kids will be obsolete by the time they enter the workforce. Sure, teach them about it as part of proper STEM education, plus language skills, music, and athletic activities, but don't waste too much time on the nuances of dealing with an LLM. In many cases the kids will know more than the teachers anyway.
Schools finally set up their (Score:1)
..."Everyone should learn to code" courses, and NOW do a 180 to AI. If teachers are going "WTF" I fully concur with their WTFage.
Use our products! (Score:2)
"Indoctrinate, indoctrinate, indoctrinate!" - Tech Company CEO's
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It beats the hell out of teaching critical thinking.
You don't want your kid coming home changing deeply held religious or political beliefs right?
This is why it's important that parents can pull their kids out of any class they object to. This way flat earther children don't have to be subjected to non-Zetetic Astronomy...
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I actually have no problem with this. Just have the bill require each director level and above, and the board of the directors, from each company providing Artificial Intelligence services, to teach one full week during summer school. Thinking about it, I bet some companies might actually step up for that.
I'll even let them miss up to four hours if they're physically injured with the skin being broken. They'll have to make it up later, of course.
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> I actually have no problem with this. Just have the bill require each director level and above, and the board of the directors, from each company providing Artificial Intelligence services, to teach one full week during summer school.
I would vote for this. I don't even demand that the directors teach at the school. Working as a cleaner in a busy public school would be acceptable too.