Ilana Glazer speaking into a megaphone at an anti-AI rally in New York City in June.
Courtesy/Greg Pak
Craig Garrett had no idea his 5-year-old daughter was talking to what he described as an AI chatbot at school every day.That was until the Brooklyn-based book editor attended a meeting held by his school district, where he said educators revealed the extent of AI use in his daughter's classroom."I was kind of horrified and shocked and disappointed," Garrett told Business Insider. "The whole notion of a 5-year-old plugged into a tablet with their headphones on and a microphone, and speaking to this animated character that's talking to them like it's their friend is just deeply wrong."That meeting, which took place in May last year, "radicalized" many of the parents in the room, Garrett said. It led him to join the AIM coalition, a group of New York City parents opposed to AI in the classroom. AIM stands for AI Moratorium.Those concerned parents are often the loudest voices in the room, but they aren't the only concerned parents, and they aren't the only voices. There is a cohort on the other side that believes students preparing to enter the workforce need to be taught to use AI, or else be left behind."In the last six months alone, the references to having AI skills in job postings in the United States have more than doubled," Keri Rodrigues, the founding president of the National Parents Union, which has a chapter in New York City and which supports AI use in schools, told Business Insider. "Parents want their kids to understand how to utilize this technology."These two groups of parents, representing opposite sides of the debate, engaged in a monthslong effort to lobby Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration, which this week ultimately sided — at least for now — with the anti-AI contingent.Mamdani announced on Wednesday that his administration would impose a one-year moratorium on student-facing AI platforms in New York City public schools for students in elementary and middle school. Under the new restrictions, Amira, the program Garrett's daughter was using, will have its AI features turned off. A spokesperson for Amira said the program was never able to say anything to a student that wasn't approved by a reading expert, and is not able to answer open-ended questions or access the public internet.
