And Pandora did, despite being told it would unleash such human suffering as illness, sorrow, and death.
And despite all the warning signs, we opened the box that unleashed Artificial Intelligence into our homes and schools…
KID-WISE:
At bedtime, many parents now let AI put their kids to sleep, singing lullabies and/or reading stories, lulling them to sleep.
No goodnight kiss…
And the Youth Perspectives on Online Safety, 2025 survey by non-profit Thorn found that:
- 67% of minors said they’d used an AI chatbot or companion.
- 29% had turned to AI chatbot for guidance on a sensitive or intimate topic.
Not a parent, teacher or guidance counselor…
As Saginaw Valley State College’s Anne Tapp Jackson reminds us, “AI can simulate the sounds of warmth and attentiveness, but it does not experience them. A machine can generate a soothing voice, but it cannot form a bond. What looks like a connection may instead be a carefully engineered illusion.”
SCHOOL-WISE:
Back in 2023, the Department of Education recommended that teachers give over a bunch of tasks to AI, and some went along for the ride, saving themselves some time.
Taking it further, Section I of President Trump’s 2025 executive order #14277 reads, in part: “… We must also invest in our educators and equip them with the tools and knowledge to not only train students about AI, but also to utilize AI in their classrooms to improve educational outcomes….
Since then, countless teachers have jumped on board, handing over such tasks to AI as lesson planning, feedback on student essays, test-creation, even emails to parents and letters of recommendation for students.
The heart of teaching in the hands of a machine.
No thought. No reflection. Nothing personal about it.
American Enterprise Institute fellow Daniel Buck put it this way: “Much of the work of an athlete is the practice and the physical training. Likewise, much of the work of a teacher is in reflection and planning. If educators outsource that to an AI assistant, don’t be surprised when classroom community and academic outcomes rapidly deteriorate.”
Duly warned, and yet…
As it stands, the Center for Democracy and Technology finds that 83% of teachers use ChatGPT and similar AI programs for both personal and school use, up 32% from just last year.
Meanwhile, a recent NPR/Ipsos poll of K-12 teachers found that:
- 20% say students use AI in class at least once a week.
- 54% said AI makes it harder for students to learn critical thinking skills.
- 55% think AI is a short cut for students to avoid doing more work.
- 60% said they’ve used AI to help with administrative tasks, saving them about 2 hours of work a week.
What’s more, AI developers’ keep driving the hook in deeper with:
- Anthropic’s Claude, offering “a library of teaching skills with a direct connection to evidence-based curricula mapped to the academic standards in all 50 states.
- Plus, agentic AI tools that “can reason, plan, and complete tasks, with the power and authority to act independently, make decisions and achieve goals. No human input needed. In fact, agentic Claude Code and Cowork analyze class data to plan instruction, diagnose data, attendance, and the like–the work of teachers.
- There are other K-12 versions, of course:
*** Open AI’s ChatGPT for teachers
*** Google’s Gemini
*** Microsoft’s CoPilot
*** Meta’s Lima
The NPR/Ipsos poll also revealed that “75% of teachers believe AI will impact education more than computers and the Internet and will fundamentally reshape the future of education and how teachers and students relate to each other. “
It already has…
~ With thanks, Carol
