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Comment by ooopsnevermind | Hacker News Reader

Super curious to hear from the parents here: Honestly, at this point isn't not exposing our kids to AI just setting them up to fail in the future? Like not letting them learn to use the internet? I have friends who are actually teaching their kids how to use AI because they don't want them to fall behind

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No, in my opinion as a parent this is lunacy. By the time my little kids "need" AI or the Internet in a meaningful way the AI labs will have either delivered the dream of "just talk to the computer" in which case there's nothing to learn to use, or they will be smoldering Pets.com-esque craters. Either way, for us right now it's books and a little bit of "old fashioned" movies and video games; no algorithmic feeds, all human-created content, and a focus on enjoying narratives and experiences together. We can look things up together on the Internet if we need to, and if that routes to an LLM Dad may groan a little but it's OK. Mostly we learn by trying things out, making guesses and talking about them, or looking in books.

I understand the calculus may change with middle school and up, but I still think that despite the "rat race" dynamic of grades and homework, kids who learn to think the pre-2023 way will come out ahead in the long run, even if it's only in life satisfaction.

My generation did not have access to the internet until we were teenagers, yet we perfectly managed to catch up. In fact, I don't think that the following generations (the so-called 'digital natives') have overall better computer skills, on the contrary.

In general, the last thing young kids need is more screen time. My 5-year-old daughter doesn't have access to any mobile devices. She enjoys drawing, handcraft, reading books, singing and playing the piano. I'm perfectly happy with that.

My school district is beginning to roll back on computer use for kids, after having gone all in on putting almost all student work on laptops (and heavily relying on learning apps) during the pandemic. They are now offering guidance to teachers and parents about when and how to limit computer usage. They also banned student cell phones a couple years ago and students are never allowed to access social media on school property. All that to say, I think my district (and other similar ones) are struggling so hard to balance good active learning against unhealthy amounts of screen time that they will reach this same place with AI fairly quickly, within a year or two I think, and start wanting to set restrictions and place guardrails.

I personally don’t know anyone who’s worried about their kids falling behind because of lack of AI knowledge. I know lots of parents worried about how screen-centered life is for kids.

What does teach how to use AI mean for grade schoolers? It’s a search engine for those purposes, the lesson is a blend of the Google and Wikipedia lessons.

No like in general not just for school - one of them taught their kid how to create their own bedtime stories, like with illustrations. Another one taught their kid how to make their own games with AI. Though yes I also literally have friends who have put their kids in alpha school which is SUPER ai.

Like since i'm sure most of us work in software, how is this different from letting your kid learn how to code early. Wouldn't restricting access just make them...more illiterate with AI

Why is "AI literacy" supposed to be a good thing here when you're effectively contrasting it with actual literacy, like bedtime stories, or "creative literacy" like learning to draw or make games?

The whole point of AI is that it doesn't require advanced specialised knowledge to use; you literally can't fall meaningfully behind in it.

I thought AI was supposed to get better and easier to use as time went on, so why should we bother to teach them now when it will be so easy to learn in the future?

Fall behind what. How long does it take to learn how to use AI.

I would rather my kids have the intelligence to know when to figure out AI is wrong than to start using Ai at an early age.

Certainly my parents have considered computers important enough, so I learned all the skills for dealing with them - installing Windows 98, finding working drives, navigating eMule, debugging IDE drives... Well, what use is that now?

> Honestly, at this point isn't not exposing our kids to AI just setting them up to fail in the future?

The whole point of AI is to enable unskilled people to perform skilled tasks.

In your mind, what skill does a person actually learn from getting onboard AI usage early? It's the other way around; those who come to it late (when the models are more capable) are going to have a shorter learning curve.

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