Pause AI in BC Schools

@aicaution

We are PACES: Vancouver - Parents for AI Caution in Educational Spaces, a group of parents concerned by the effects of GenAI+chatbots on students. Follows are not endorsements.

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Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· 22d

VSB trustee candidates with @copevancouver.bsky.social confirmed that they support a Pause on AI, and if elected would work to remove GenAI and chatbots from Vancouver Schools. Full statement here: www.aicaution.ca/vsb/trustee-...

COPE

Supports a Pause on AI

COPE has provided us with the following statement regarding their stance on AI in schools.

- COPE is opposed to the 2026 spring implementation of Microsoft Copilot at VSB, including the use of GenAI and chatbots in Vancouver schools.
- COPE will put a pause on the use of GenAI and chatbots.
- COPE will engage and consult with stakeholders and the broader community to implement a technology audit with a specific focus on the use of AI in schools.
- COPE will engage and consult with stakeholders and the broader community to create VSB policies and procedures to address the concerns below:
- Safety and privacy for students
- Impact of AI usage on learning outcomes
- Impact of AI usage on student mental health
- Equity of technology resources
- Need for transparent and robust consultation with stakeholders and community on AI usage and adoption in schools.
- Impact on the use of and validity of results when AI is used for public engagement and consultation.
- Impact on climate and the environment of AI usage and adoption
- Lack of student AI usage policies and procedures
- Lack of staff AI usage policies and procedures
- VSB practises potentially in conflict with proposed Federal Bill C-34, The Safe Social Media Act

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· 22d

We will be speaking at the @noaivancouver.bsky.social No AI Data Centres march this weekend, Sunday July 26 @ 1pm, at the Vancouver Art Gallery. See you there!

Hand drawn poster showing a single raised fist in front of a crowd with signs outside Vancouver City Hall.

One sign says "Say no to AI data centres in Vancouver".

Another reads "Vancouver Art Gallery to Vancouver City Hall, Sunday July 26 @ 1pm"

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· 24d

"Students need to learn AI to prepare them to enter the workforce." It's worth reading the Mandate for the School System for BC. "The world of work" is only a small part of the purpose of schools. www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/e...

Government is responsible for ensuring that all of our youth have the opportunity to obtain high quality schooling that will assist in the development of an educated society. To this end, schools in the province assist in the development of citizens who are:
• thoughtful, able to learn and to think critically, and who can communicate information from a broad knowledge base;
• creative, flexible, self-motivated and who have a positive self image;
• capable of making independent decisions;
• skilled and who can contribute to society generally, including the world of work;
• productive, who gain satisfaction through achievement and who strive for physical well being;
• cooperative, principled and respectful of others regardless of differences;
• aware of the rights and prepared to exercise the responsibilities of an individual within the family, the community, Canada, and the world

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· 26d

Students who use AI learn less. So why is it in BC classrooms? We can make schools better in September, sign the petition for a pause on AI in BC schools. actionnetwork.org/petitions/pa...

Photo of a poster on a streetlight. Poster reads "pause air in BC schools". In the background is an CBC Vancouver office.

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· 28d

Research from University of Tubingen on grade 9 students using AI as a math tutor: - Students planned to use it for help on mathematical procedures rather than telling them the answer - In reality, more used it to tell them the answer - Those students did worse on the test arxiv.org/pdf/2606.28472

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jul 4

How to talk about "AI" When even toothbrushes have "artificial intelligence", what use is the term? What can you say instead? aicaution.ca/media-style-...

Advert for an electric toothbrush. Headline says "The revolutionary Genius X with artificial intelligence"

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jul 1

Ah darn, so close to bingo on this one. www.amny.com/opinion/ai-m...

Five-by-five bingo card. Squares from top-left to bottom-right, row by row are:
- Check! "Learn to fact-check"
- "Don't want kids to fall behind"
- Check! Guest speaker works for AI
- Conflates research AI and chatbots
- "Thought partner"
- "We all use AI"
- "But the calculator!"
- Mentions safety, guardrails
- Check! "Critical thinking skills"
- "But {country} is doing it!"
- Check! "Training for the workplace"
- Doesn't mention mental health
- Check! "AI is inevitable"
- "Excited to see what students do with it"
- Check! "Efficiency"
- Check! "AI is the future"
- "Coding"
- "Keeps students engaged"
- "Democratizing creativity"
- Check! "Kids use it at home anyway"
- "Cognitive offloading" but recommends AI anyway
- "Helps with ideas"
- "Teach them to use it ethically"
- Calls tech from 10 years ago "AI"
- Check! Doesn't mention environmental impact

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 28

Sorry Mark, studies show that AI has negative effects: 📉 Skilled doctors who use AI lose the ability to identify precancerous lesions. 📉 Students perform better at homework, but then 20% worse within 6 months, and 20% worse in exams. 📉 Programmers who use AI can't diagnose problems in code.

Collage of scientific papers and article headlines with some parts highlighted.
Headline: Is AI Ruining our skills? Early results are in - and they're not good.

From the same article: "Spoiled by AI?
A study of physicians in Poland who specialize in endoscopy — the use of flexible probes to examine the inside of the human body — shows how quickly AI tools can erode human abilities. The physicians, who had all performed at least 2,000 colonoscopies during their careers, were given access to an AI system that analyses colonoscopy images in real time and flags a type of precancerous intestinal lesion called an adenoma. The tool was available to the specialists on some days but not on others.
Once physicians began using it, their performance dropped significantly whenever the system was unavailable. During the three-month period before the AI tool was introduced, the specialists found at least one adenoma during 28.4% of colonoscopies. During the three-month period after the tool was introduced, the adenoma detection rate for colonoscopies performed without AI assistance decreased to 22.4%."

Another paper is titled: "The Generative AI Learning Penalty: Evidence from Chinese Secondary Education"

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 27

See you at the Vancouver Art Gallery at 1pm for the @noaivancouver.bsky.social protest!

Hand-made signs reading "Families say no to AI data centres", "Pause AI in BC schools"

Hand-made sign reading "not inevitable". Not is in red, inevitable is in white, on a black background.

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 27

We will be at the AI data centre protest tomorrow! See you at the Vancouver Art Gallery tomorrow at 1pm!

Say no to AI data centres tomorrow! 1pm starting at the art gallery, going to city hall.

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 26

But then you couldn't talk with The Buddha on the author's website

Screenshot from the article author's site. AI-generated images are captioned with "chat with Socrates", "chat with Darwin" etc including other famous people from history

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 25

Has anyone seen the AI Literacy curriculum offered by Amii? The federal government's AI literacy programme mentions that Amii will be leading the effort in schools. The details are not available online and seem to be only available for schools. www.amii.ca/courses-lite...

Topics

1. Harnessing the Potential of ChatGPT: Introduces Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, and guides students on their responsible use.

2. AI in the Real World: Examines the societal impacts of AI, encouraging critical thinking about AI and broader technological advancements.

3. Careers Reimagined: Explores the impact of AI on various industries and the career pathways it creates.

4. Computer Science in the Age of AI: Builds AI competency within the Computer Science Program of Studies through projects and interactive learning.

5. AI for the Elementary Classroom: Designed to support elementary teachers in introducing students to the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and, more specifically, generative AI (GenAI).

6. Ethics and Safety: Designed to support elementary teachers in introducing students to the ethical considerations and safety practices related to artificial intelligence (AI).

7. AI in Junior High: Designed to support junior high teachers in introducing students to the foundational concepts and real-world applications of artificial intelligence (AI).

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 24

Students don't want AI in their classrooms either. thebrokencopier.substack.com/p/i-asked-my...

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 22

We're in good company.

Two posters are visible on a lamppost in a city environment.

One reads "Say no to AI data centres, June 27, 1pm, Vancouver art gallery". The poster is covered with cute hand-drawn characters.

Another poster below it says " We need a pause on AI in schools."

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 22

"AI is getting more and more human-like!" The human:

Portrait of Habsburg family member with extremely prominent chin.

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 21

is this right?

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 18

Proponents of AI say: "Look, AI (a custom-made, machine learning tool) found a vaccine! Therefore students should be using AI (a general-purpose chatbot product)." One is a scientific tool whose accuracy is peer-reviewed. The other is a product from a company that desperately needs to make money

Screenshot of podcast player "AI for Educators" by Dan Fitzpatrick

The episode title is "AI Vaccine Design: First Human Trials, Future Healthcare"

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 15

Everyone get your bingo cards ready for Tuesday 2pm.

Five-by-five bingo card. Squares from top-left to bottom-right, row by row are:
- "Learn to fact-check"
- "Don't want kids to fall behind"
- Guest speaker works for AI
- Conflates research AI and chatbots
- "Thought partner"
- "We all use AI"
- "But the calculator!"
- Mentions safety, guardrails
- "Critical thinking skills"
- "But {country} is doing it!"
- "Training for the workplace"
- Doesnt mention mental health
- "AI is inevitable"
- "Excited to see what students do with it"
- "Efficiency"
- "AI is the future"
- "Coding"
- "Keeps students engaged"
- "Democratizing creativity"
- "Kids use it at home anyway"
- "Cognitive offloading" but recommends AI anyway
- "Helps with ideas"
- "Teach them to use it ethically"
- Calls tech from 10 years ago "AI"
- Doesn't mention environmental impact

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 14

We are at Kitsilano Farmers Market today until 2pm!

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 14

Rogue teachers corrected our poster at the farmers market!

A tall poster with the heading "We need a pause on AI in schools".

Below it reads "Students that use AI remember less and understand less"

The word "that" is crossed out in red and corrected with "who".

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 14

4/ The report also highlights how students are "engaged". This is another key part of the EdTech pitch. But engagement alone doesn't mean a lot. Social media is engaging, Roblox is engaging, but unless they improve student learning they have no place in classrooms.

Finding 3: Engagement by design, scaled with AI

3A. Interactivity - Many Spaces use AI to bring new forms of fun
into the learning experience, engagement patterns that would
be difficult to scale in a traditional classroom.

A notable portion of the Spaces added a level of fun. Overall,
about 1/3 of all Spaces presented language like, “playful,” “cool,”
and “exciting.” Leveraging AI, teachers designed Spaces where
Dot played another character to be interviewed, brought science
experiments to life through simulations, and redefined what a quiz
could be by upleveling it into game scenarios.

Overall, about 1/3 of all Spaces presented language
like, “playful,” “cool,” and “exciting.”

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 14

2/ The report does not evaluate learning outcomes. To know whether AI should be used in classrooms, you would test students that do, and don't use it, and see which group performs better. The report doesn't do that. It evaluates the kinds of questions students asked OpenAI, and categorizes them.

Table of data titled Bloom’s Taxonomy

Columns are name, N and percentage.

Data reads:

Remember 7,982 33.5%
Understand 17,508 73.4%
Apply 10,641 44.6%
Analyze 14,152 59.4%
Evaluate 13,810 57.9%
Create 8,912 37.4%
Unclassified 1,821 7.6%

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 12

We will have a stall at Kitsilano Farmers' Market this Sunday June 14 from 10am until 2pm! If you're in the area, we'd love to chat! We will have postcards to write to your MLA or trustee, maybe some badges? See you there!

A stall at a farmers' market. In the foreground many postcards hang from pegs strung across the entrance to the stall. A table with markers, flowers and a big sheet of paper is at the bottom. "We need a pause on AI" poster is visible.

Two children put coloured-dot stickers on a poster-board in front of a farmers' market stall. The title "AI and education, share your thoughts" is on the board. Dots are grouped into clusters underneath section names like "Mental health impacts". A poster reading "We need a pause on AI in schools" is in the corner.

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 11

This is from the speaker chosen by @surreyschools.bsky.social to talk to parents about AI this evening. Surely the goal of parents and educators is to ensure students get the best possible education, whether that does or doesn't use AI. Why does AI *need* to be used?

Speech bubble with the quote text "As parents and educators, our goal is not to reject AI but to help our children thrive in harmony with it."
- Dr Shimi Kang, Psychiatrist & Author

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 7

There's got to be a name for this kind of circle-ish justification for AI in classrooms. Hmmm...

Flow diagram. There's an oval at the top with "AI is inevitable". Coming out of it is an arrow labelled "So..." that leads to another oval labelled "We must put it in classrooms". Coming out of this oval is another arrow, also labelled "So..." which curiously leads back to the first oval. Creating a sort of circle-ish diagram.

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 6

2. VSB were quick to point out that they chose Copilot because of its safety. However the main risk with AI is cognitive offloading. Becoming reliant on the tool to think. Students who used it this week found that Copilot 13+ will happily write essays for you.

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 6

We present: AI in Schools Bingo. Next time there's an announcement, play along at home!

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 4

Since Copilot 13+ was enabled for @vsb39.bsky.social students, this is what they see when they log into their school portal. A Copilot chatbot prompt asking if they need help. Then if they ask, Copilot 13+ will still write entire essays for them. The guardrails do not prevent cognitive offloading.

Computer interface showing "New chat" tab selected on the left, and in the main panel a title "What can I help with?" and a text box below it with "Message Copilot"

Screenshot of Copilot chat interface. The user asks "write an essay on espionage during the cold war. 10th grade level. No emojis. Proper formatting."

Copilot replies

"Espionage During the Cold War"

"The Cold War, which lasted from approximately 1947 to 1991, was a period of intense political and military tension between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies. Although the two powers never fought each other directly in a large-scale war, they competed in many ways, including through espionage. Espionage, or spying, became one of the most important tools used by both sides to gain an advantage. It played a crucial role in shaping international relations and national security during this time."

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· Jun 2

Seeing even AI+Education booster podcasts like this gradually getting closer and closer to "getting it." Their existence requires that they ignore the risks so they still say AI is still worth it, but they weren't even acknowledging risks 6 months ago.

Pause AI in BC Schools@aicaution· May 28

After months of being asked what students will be using AI for, this is what VSB have come up with. 5 points, the first two of which are not learning outcomes, the last two of which are objectively terrible uses of AI. What a terrible failure of Trustees to protect students from hype and capital.