OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft Back Bill to Fund 'AI Literacy' in Schools (404 Media, 5/4)

[highplainsdem]

https://www.404media.co/literacy-in-future-technologies-artificial-intelligence-act-adam-schiff-mike-rounds/

A new, bipartisan bill introduced by Democratic Senator of California Adam Schiff and endorsed by the biggest AI developers in the world—including OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft—would change the K-12 curriculum to shoehorn in “AI literacy,” something that young people and teachers alike already hate in schools.

The Literacy in Future Technologies Artificial Intelligence, or LIFT AI Act, would empower the new director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to make grant awards “on a merit-reviewed, competitive basis to institutions of higher education or nonprofit organizations (or a consortium thereof) to support research activities to develop educational curricula, instructional material, teacher professional development, and evaluation methods for AI literacy at the K–12 level,” the bill says.

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Last year, the American Federation of Teachers announced a $23 million partnership with Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic to build an “AI training hub for educators” to show teachers how to do things like build lesson plans with AI. In January, the AFT announced it was leaving X because it was “sickened” by the non-consensual sexual abuse material created using xAI’s Grok image generator.

Six months ago, Schiff co-signed a letter urging Trump to take steps to protect consumers from energy costs incurred by data center development. “Since his second inauguration, President Trump has cozied up to Meta, Google, Oracle, OpenAI, and other Big Tech companies, fast-tracking and pushing for the buildout of power-hungry data centers across the country,” the letter said. Now, Schiff has “cozied up” to the world’s biggest AI tech companies.

Schiff probably actually thinks this is a good idea. He strikes me as too ethical to just cozy up to AI companies, no matter how much power they have. But this is a HORRIBLE idea, and it was wrong for the AFT to get behind this, too.