Mamdani to New York City kids: No AI until high school

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.” “Kids need to learn to think for themselves, they need to work alongside their peers, they need to learn how to ask better questions, and they need to learn what it feels like to not know the answer,” Mamdani said.

“This is what learning is all about, and it is what city government is determined to protect.” But back in April, over 250 education experts exclusively told Fortune they were calling on the mayor to instill a five-year moratorium.

At the time, the city’s AI guidance for schools was still the permissive “traffic light” version, which sorted AI uses into barred, cautioned, and allowed categories but left student use it in a vague, use-with-caution middle tier.

Leonie Haimson of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy at the time told Fortune : “He said he himself doesn’t use AI, which is good, but why is he foisting it on New York City public school students?” Now, the city’s policy is stuck between two worlds: education advocates are asking for more, while proponents of the AI believe a moratorium even of one year will adversely affect students.

The ask and the outcome In April, when that coalition of more than 250 doctors, child development experts and advocacy organizations called for a five-year moratorium on generative AI in pre-K through 12 schools, the worry was about teaching kids how to learn.

“We just don’t want to waste another 10 years in which our kids’ education is undermined,” Haimson said.