The European Commission and the OECD are calling for urgent AI literacy in schools, but the reality in classrooms is already worrying: students are using technology to escape effort. Alex Stratulat, co-founder of the Algolymp platform, which trains Romania’s international IT Olympians, warns in an interview for “Adevărul” that uncontrolled access to ChatGPT works as a “double-edged sword”. If children are given a technological “Bugatti” before learning the basics the hard way, the risk is that they will become intellectually passive and pay a huge bill in the future.
The document comes as a response to the ever-deepening integration of artificial intelligence tools into children’s lives and learning experiences, underlining that these technologies impose new responsibilities on teachers, who have a central role in training young generations.
The framework proposes a clear direction to report on AI for teachers, school leaders, education systems and decision-makers, taking into account the impact that artificial intelligence has on how key skills are acquired, from critical thinking to communication and problem solving.
While the European framework has just been launched, some states have already taken concrete measures. French students in the 10th grade (the first year of high school in the French system) will take, starting in the autumn, a course dedicated to artificial intelligence, within the discipline “Numerical Sciences and Technology”, for one hour a week.
In Romania, the debate about what education should look like in the field of artificial intelligence is just at the beginning, and authoritative voices in the field warn that the use of AI tools by children must be accompanied by thorough training and an extremely careful approach.
Alex Stratulat, co-founder of the Algolymp platform, where students benefit from mentoring for the Mathematics-Informatics, Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity Olympiads, explained to “Adevărul” why it is necessary to have courses that teach students how to use artificial intelligence in a healthy way, but he also drew attention to the dangers.
According to the specialist, courses that teach children how to use AI platforms can be useful, as they could reduce the impression that they can replace one’s own effort.
“If you don’t first master the domain through your own effort, the AI can’t do the work for you, but once you’ve mastered the knowledge and applied it a few times, then the tool can become useful. The main objective must remain the development of the mind, and if we give the answer on the tray, we do more harm than good. Therefore, the AI is a double-edged sword, and a lot of psychological work is needed here for students to understand that if they cheat now, they will pay a huge bill in the future when their brains are no longer able to think or deal with complicated things”stated Alex Stratulat, for “The Truth”.
What skills should the little ones acquire?
In recent years, with the acceleration of the development of tools based on generative artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, and with the expansion of their access among the general public, discussions about the opportunity and the way to prepare students to interact with these technologies have multiplied.
Stratulat brings up the fundamental distinction between two possible pedagogical approaches to artificial intelligence.
“At our level, the teaching of artificial intelligence is carried out at an advanced, Olympiad theoretical level, and many of our modules are taught even within master’s or doctorate degrees. There is, however, a huge difference between teaching children how the mathematical models behind AI work – which requires a thorough mathematical background – and teaching them to use these tools. It is precisely the latter approach that is, in our opinion, a rather dangerous one, as we see from more and more people are arguing that it is imperative to teach children to use AI”said Alex Stratulat.
According to the specialist, one of the biggest problems is the vulnerability of the little ones to the temptation to use artificial intelligence to replace the classic training steps.
“We have to realize that many children are not yet mature enough and will be tempted to use artificial intelligence to make life easier for them in the learning process, instead of going through the classic steps. We, for example, take this traditional approach until the student has acquired some solid foundations and a well-defined critical thinking, which has developed his neural connections. Otherwise, using AI is tantamount to bullshit. It’s like trying to learn German, but doing all your homework with a program, and when you have to talk face to face, you don’t know anything.Unfortunately, kids are already cheating in droves, using AI to do their homework“, warned Alex Stratulat.
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The danger of artificial intelligence for children who are given access to technology without preparation
The specialist advocates an approach that emphasizes not the simple operation of AI tools by students, but the formation of a critical and constructive attitude towards them.
“Therefore, the biggest challenge is not to teach children how to operate AI tools, but how to use them in a constructive way, for their own development. You can use AI to learn, but you have to know at what point in the study and how to use this tool. We support the idea that it is beneficial to beat your head on a problem, even for a whole day, because that’s how the brain is formed and those thinking muscles are trained. If students stop learning to think because the AI does everything for them or because they cheat on homework, there is a risk that they become intellectually passive and not competent enough to know what to ask the AI when faced with a more advanced task”explained Alex Stratulat.
To illustrate the danger, he made a comparison: “Think about driving school classes. There’s a reason you learn to drive a regular car like a Logan, because that’s how you understand the fundamentals and develop healthy reflexes. If you gave a newbie a thousand-horsepower Bugatti to do school with, they’d get excited, but eventually they’d end up on the fence. The exact same thing is happening now with AI: the parents own this Bugatti in the garage, and the kids have access to it. The question is how to get the kids to go with the Logan until they are old enough, and the solution would be to give them a little bit of both. Specifically, to do math and other subjects the hard and classic way, to write by hand – which is scientifically proven to build neural connections, especially during the growth period – and to bang their heads, focusing, because that’s where both the brain and the brain are defined. attitude.”
AI, a double-edged sword. Risks of blind use
Alex Stratulat warns that the uncontrolled use of artificial intelligence has serious consequences, both at the individual and societal level.
“If we always take the easy way out and turn to AI every time we encounter a difficulty, we don’t form the habit of persevering, and this has a major impact on the soft skills needed in life. Today, teenagers create software with the help of AI without understanding anything about the mechanisms behind it, and these programs will inevitably have bugs in their system.”
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This is precisely why we believe that students should focus on fundamentals such as algorithms, mathematics and cyber security. I believe that artificial intelligence should be adopted to a reasonable extent, where it really helps us, and not blindly, because there is also a philosophical question involved. If we all adopt AI en masse, the companies selling it get richer, the technology gets better, but jobs disappear, and we end up in a humanitarian and social crisis. AI should be used as a tool, not as a replacement for human effort”emphasized the expert.
For children, the specialist recommends an approach that emphasizes deep understanding of principles, not quick use of tools.
“For children, I would teach the basics of how AI works and introduce basic elements of machine learning, but this requires a solid mathematical background. Although a lot of mathematics is taught in Romania, more and more children run away from this subject, and those who hate it, along with physics and other theoretical sciences, will have difficulty understanding how and why the models behind it work. The danger is not necessarily related to age, but to the level of knowledge of the child when given this power. In complex systems like banking, finance, or healthcare, AI often fails and is extremely expensive if you don’t know how to use it properly to generate the desired functionality. Those who use AI most effectively and cheaply are those who deeply understand the concepts of software and architecture, meaning people who learned the hard way.”concluded Alex Stratulat.
