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New York Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
China restricts AI across the country to prevent kids cheating, America could learn from it
China now turns off AI for the whole country during exam weeks. That's because the Chinese Communist Party knows their youth learn less when they use artificial intelligence. Surely, President Xi Jinping is reveling in this leg up over American students, who are using AI as a crutch and missing out on valuable learning experiences as a result. It's just one of the ways China protects their youth, while we feed ours into the jaws of Big Tech in the name of progress. Advertisement When Chinese students sat for gaokao exams — intense four day college placement tests — in June, AI companies Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, and Moonshot all shut off useful features for would-be cheaters, including a photo-upload function that solves exam questions for you. 6 Chinese students sit for intense four day gaokao exams to determine what colleges they will attend. Getty Images 'China is a generally techno-optimist country,' Scott Singer, a tech scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for National Peace, told The Post Advertisement 'That said, the government will clamp down when it thinks technology will cause societal harm and when certain uses run counter to the country's interests. And China's government has shown it's not afraid to clamp down on its tech companies when it believes the circumstances require it.' All Chinese users who attempted to use the feature during exam days received an error message, according to Bloomberg. None of the companies that modified services made any public statement about the freeze in service, and none responded to request for comment from The Post. Moonshot could not be reached for comment. 6 Tristan Harris discussed China's regulation of artificial intelligence on Real Time with Bill Maher. Real Time with Bill Maher Advertisement Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris said on Real Time with Bill Maher earlier this month that the move is 'actually really smart, because what it means is that students during the year can't just rely on AI to do all their homework.' Harris, a former design ethicist at Google turned Big Tech whistleblower, says that American kids, by contrast, are suffering learning losses from AI: 'We are seeing kids who are in a race. If the other kids in their class are cheating… they're gonna start cheating and using AI to outsource their thinking.' The science backs this up. A June MIT study suggests that AI degrades critical thinking skills. Researchers found that people who wrote essays with AI had less brain activity while doing work, retained less of the content, and outsourced more and more of their workload to AI over time. 6 High school teacher Murphy Kenefick says AI is a 'fight every assignment' in his classroom. Courtest of Murphy Kenefick Advertisement 'It's a fight every assignment,' Murphy Kenefick, a Nashville high school literature teacher, told The Post. 'I've caught it about 40 times, and who knows how many other times they've gotten away with it.' AI optimists often argue that, if we pump the breaks on AI, China will just surpass us. But Harris argues that whatever country learns to better regulate the new tech will be the real victor — because they'll have smarter citizens. 'What's guiding this is the race between the US and China — if we don't build it, we're just gonna lose to the country that will,' he explained. 'But this is a mistake, because [the winner is] actually who's better at governing the technology.' He added, 'We beat China to social media. Did that make us stronger or did that make us weaker?' 6 People who use AI for assignments have less brain activity while completing work, according to a recent MIT study. Alina – Harris is right. The US might have been cutting edge on rolling out platforms like Instagram and YouTube, but we were also cutting edge in hooking our kids and turning them into doom-scrolling zombies. China ultimately came out with the heroin of social media: TikTok. But, unlike us, they've always taken great care to protect their populace from harm. The CCP exported TikTok — with its twerking trends and dangerous challenges, while giving their own citizens a modified, less addictive, and more pro-social version. Advertisement 6 The CCP has heavily regulated youth access to technology under Xi Jinping. REUTERS Douyin, the Chinese iteration, has voice reminders and interruptions for users who scroll for too long. Teens under 14 are limited to only 40 minutes a day and are shown inspirational content, like science experiments, patriotic videos, and educational content, according to Harris. Douyin also censors information deemed counter to national interests, including content from economists who were critical of the Chinese economy, according to the New York Times. TikTok declined to comment on this matter. Advertisement Unlike the American government, the CCP wields authoritarian control over their populace and their tech companies. America shouldn't copy them wholesale. 6 Chinese citizens only have access to the Douyin app instead of TikTok. Mojahid Mottakin – But China is cunning, clever, and forward-looking. If they've decided that endless scrolling on TikTok and homework help from AI is bad for their kids, it's probably bad for ours too. 'China is correct to take the risks of AI seriously, not just for education but for society as a whole,' Anthony Aguirre, co-Founder and Executive Director of the Future of Life Institute, told The Post. Advertisement 'The United States will have very different ways of addressing this, but the answer can't be to do nothing. Lawmakers must step up now with clear safeguards to protect children and society from repeating the same mistakes we did with social media.' As we unleash AI — which has the potential to be the most transformative modern technology ever invented — onto the world, we must take great care to do so cautiously, especially when it comes to our youth. If we fail to, the next generation in China may leave their tech-addled counterparts in America in the dust. Perhaps the real arms race is the long game.
New York Post
25-06-2025
- Science
- New York Post
Educators warn that AI shortcuts are already making kids lazy: ‘Critical thinking and attention spans have been demolished'
A new MIT study suggests that AI is degrading critical thinking skills — which does not surprise educators one bit. 'Brain atrophy does occur, and it's obvious,' Dr. Susan Schneider, founding director of the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University, told The Post. 'Talk to any professor in the humanities or social sciences and they will tell you that students who just throw in a prompt and hand in their paper are not learning. ' 11 The MIT study used EEG scans to analyze brain activity in the three groups as they wrote their essays. Researchers at MIT's Media Lab found that individuals who wrote essays with the help of ChatGPT showed less brain activity while completing the task, committed less to memory and grew gradually lazier in the writing process over time. A group of 54 18- to 39-year-olds were split into three cohort — one using ChatGPT, one using Google search and one 'brain-only' — and asked to write four SAT essays over the course of four months. Scientists monitored their brain activity under EEG scans and found that the ChatGPT group had the lowest brain engagement when writing and showed lower executive control and attention levels. 11 Dr. Susan Schneider says heavy AI use is degrading her students' thinking skills. Over four sessions, the participants in the study's Chat GPT group started to use AI differently. At first, they generally asked for broad and minimal help, like with structure. But near the end of the study period, they were more likely to resort to copying and pasting entire sections of writing. Murphy Kenefick, a high-school literature teacher in Nashville, said he has seen first-hand how students' 'critical thinking and attention spans have been demolished by AI. 'It's especially a problem with essays, and it's a fight every assignment,' he told The Post. 'I've caught it about 40 times, and who knows how many other times they've gotten away with it.' 11 Eight researchers affiliated with the MIT Media Lab complex carried out the study over four months. Andy Ryan/ MIT 11 Experts are concerned that students who grow up with AI could have their thinking skills especially stunted. – In the MIT study, the 'brain-only' group had the 'strongest, wide-ranging networks' in their brain scans, showing heightened activity in regions associated with creativity, memory and language processing. They also expressed more engagement, satisfaction and ownership of their work. 'There is a strong negative correlation between AI tool usage and critical thinking skills, with younger users exhibiting higher dependence on AI tools and consequently lower cognitive performance scores,' the study's authors warn. 'The impact extends beyond academic settings into broader cognitive development.' Asked to rewrite prior essays, the ChatGPT group was least able to recall them, suggesting they didn't commit them to memory as strongly as other groups. 11 High-school literature teacher Murphy Kenefick fears his students wouldn't even care about the study's findings. Courtest of Murphy Kenefick 11 Nataliya Kosmyna of MIT Media Labs was the lead researcher for the study. MIT The ChatGPT group also tended to produce more similar essays, prompting two English teachers brought in to evaluate the essays to characterize them as 'soulless' — something teachers all over the country say they are seeing more regularly. Robert Black, who retired last week from teaching AP and IB high school history in Canandaigua, New York, said that the last two years of his 34-year career were a 'nightmare because of ChatGPT.' 'When caught, kids just shrug,' he said. 'They can't even fathom why it is wrong or why the writing process is important.' 11 Researchers and experts are especially concerned about the degradation of critical thinking skills in young people due to AI usage. Gorodenkoff – 11 The MIT study found that subjects within the ChatGPT group tended to produce more similar essays, prompting two English teachers brought in to evaluate the essays to characterize them as 'soulless' Inna – Black also points out AI has only worsened a gradual trend of degrading skills that he attributes to smartphones. 'Even before ChatGPT it was harder and harder to get them to think out a piece of writing — brainstorming, organizing and composing,' he told The Post. 'Now that has become a total fool's errand.' Psychologist Jean Twenge, the author of '10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World,' agrees that AI is just one additional barrier to learning for Gen Z and Gen Alpha. She points out that international math, reading and science standardized test scores have been on the decline for years, which she attributes to pandemic lockdown and the advent of smartphones and social media. 11 Dr. Jean Twenge says that smartphones and now artificial intelligence pose a threat to youth learning. 11 Dr. Jean M. Twenge is author of the forthcoming book '10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World.' 'With the addition of AI, academic performance will likely decline further, as students who regularly use AI to write essays are not learning how to write,' Twenge told The Post. 'When you don't learn how to write, you don't learn how to think deeply.' The MIT study study was spearheaded by Media Lab research scientist Nataliya Kosmyna, who told Time Magazine that 'developing brains are at the highest risk.' While Toby Walsh, Chief Scientist at the University of New South Wales AI Institute in Sydney, Australia, acknowledges that the study's findings are frightening, he also warns educators against outright banning it. 11 AI professor Toby Walsh says that educators need to learn to integrate AI carefully. 'We have to be mindful that there are great opportunities. I'm actually incredibly jealous of what students have today,' Walsh said, recalling his 15-year-old daughter recently using an AI voice to ask her questions in French as a study aide. 'I don't think we should be banning AI,' Walsh said. But, he added, 'the concern is that AI surpasses human intelligence, not because AI got better but because human intelligence got worse.' Kenefick, meanwhile, imagines his students 'wouldn't care' about the study's findings: 'They just want the grade. They see no real incentive to develop any useful skills. It's very troubling.'
