AI in school; a recipe for disaster

By Cal Sutton

President Donald Trump signed yet another executive order on April 23, ahead of the 2025-26 academic year, which begins the steps toward an artificial intelligence-reliant K-12 education. 

Executive Order 14277, “Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth,” states that the administration’s goal is to familiarize students with AI in hopes of developing “an AI-ready workforce.”

With early September being the time of year most schools reconvene, I am left wondering about the future of K-12 students’ educational journeys. Of course, the addition of AI into schools could have upsides. Class lessons may become more efficient and questions may be more readily answered. I just cannot let go of my feeling that AI has the potential to foster a culture of laziness not only in school, but in society as a whole.

Reading that Trump wants to ready young minds for the workforce by using AI creates an almost unexplainable emotion for me. I feel a mixture of discomfort and frustration, as well as other unidentifiable negative emotions all messily warping together. I cannot help but worry for the future of education. Preparing students to use AI in school is ultimately setting them up for failure.

At Rider, some professors make statements either on the first day of classes or in their syllabuses, outlining their AI expectations. The usage of AI is something serious that can get students kicked out of classes here if it is prohibited by the professor.

I have had a few conversations about AI with friends and family lately and a common topic I tend to bring up is the environmental impact.

To cool off an AI power plant so that it does not overheat, water is used. In a similar way to us using air conditioning, AI needs to cool down the technology so it does not overheat. According to research done at the University of California, AI is projected to use as much water in one year as Denmark, if they used four to six times as much water as they do now. AI’s incredibly high water usage could be going to people in countries that lack clean drinking water.

A counterargument I have heard far too often when I mention AI’s impact on the environment is “well our environment is already bad anyway.” This response and those adjacent to it are proof that we need to address the empathy crisis we are facing today. Why do we not care for our future generations? Yes, there is irreparable damage. Why should we knowingly and purposely make it worse, though?

Allowing AI to be openly used in education will be something that once begun, will be incredibly hard to reverse. Students use AI now when it is not allowed. When AI is implemented, even if it is in a controlled environment, such as “just math class” or similarly, it will become something children will depend on.

I am personally worried about a group of young minds relying on AI. Trump wants to have them well-versed in AI so they can enter the real world workforce with these “skills.” I do not think AI creates skills, it does the exact opposite. I would not want someone who relied on AI throughout school doing my health examinations or being my ethics professor.

While I can see how people associate positives with the use of AI, such as swift answers to quick questions, I disagree with this idea because commonly, AI does not answer these prompts accurately. In addition, the potential negative impacts on our psyche need to be addressed before we push it out to young, developing minds.

AI needs to be more thoroughly assessed for its societal and environmental impacts before we think about making it even more widespread than it already is.

Cal Sutton is a sophomore journalism major