He might be the second-youngest mayor in New York City history, but 34-year-old Mayor Zohran Mamdani didn’t have AI in school, and he wants to make sure city kids don’t either.
The digital-native politician, who said he doesn’t use AI himself, announced on Wednesday alongside Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative AI for children in 2-K through eighth grade, covering nearly 600,000 students in the country’s largest public school system and banning companion chatbots across every grade.
“The tech industry wants us to believe that AI in early education is not only inevitable, but that it is necessary. We do not see it that way,” Mamdani said at a news conference announcing the ban.
“I have yet to see a study showing that AI is beneficial for students in elementary and middle school, with the exception, of course, of research sponsored by the very corporations that stand to profit.”
City Hall is calling it the most expansive student-facing AI policy in the country. “The tech industry wants us to believe that A.I.-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary. We do not see it that way,” Mamdani said in a statement announcing the policy, and at the conference, he added that the city would “embrace new technology, but only when it serves our students.”
