To Test the A.I. Learning Hype, I Visited Classrooms

By Natasha Singer
Published in The New York Times on September 10, 2023

In January, Marisa Shuman, a computer science teacher at The Young Women’s Leadership School of the Bronx, invited me to spend a few days embedded in her classroom.

Her school, a public middle and high school for girls, specializes in math, science and technology. And she thought I might be interested in a lesson she had just prepared on ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that can manufacture book reports and social studies essays.

As a reporter who has spent years chronicling how tech companies and their tools are reshaping public schools, I jumped at the chance.

At the time, ChatGPT was beginning to blow up in schools and on college campuses. Tech executives had started promoting familiarity with A.I. tools as a crucial skill for students.

Meanwhile, New York City Public Schools, the nation’s largest school system, had just blocked access to ChatGPT on school devices and networks over concerns of cheating and inaccuracy.

Ms. Shuman, however, saw it as a teachable moment.