A.I. Moratorium for NYC Schools members rally against the mayor's high school pilots

NYS Assembly member Diana Moreno always shows up!

Parents, students, and electeds rallied with the A.I. Moratorium for NYC Schools before the Panel for Education Policy meeting in Long Island City on Wednesday, calling on the city to cancel the five pilots that could inflict "A.i." on up to 50,000 high schoolers.

You can sign the A.I. Moratorium petition calling to cancel the pilots here and ask Mayor Mamdani to cancel the pilots here!

Juno shrugs holds a hand to her face making a kind of theatrical aside comment while speaking at the A.I. Moratorium rally

Juno, a student organizer with the A.I. Moratorium, said that the only way a kid can get out of an "A.i." high school pilot is to switch classes - a deeply unfair burden.

State Senator Kristen Gonzales speaks before a group of A.I. Moratorium members who are holding signs reading things like "Teachers Over AI Tutors" and "A.I. is CREEPY" and "A.I. is RACIST" and "Keep AI Out of Our High Schools" and "No A.i. EVER." A couple hands hold microphones from news orgs towards the Senator.

NY State Senator Kristin Gonzales calling for the pilots to be cancelled.

Liat from Climate Families speaks while holding a sign reading "A.I. is TORCHING the PLANET" with flames drawn on the bottom and sides

Liat from Climate Families noted the environmental damage inflicted by "A.i."

Person holding a handmade sign that reads "Keep AI out of our schools / Keep ICE out of our schools / Protect our students!"

As speakers noted, "A.i." in the schools threatens student privacy and could be weaponized by ICE.

Juno raises their fist and beams after speaking at the rally

Juno absolutely killed it with their speech.

Maria Bautista with RJPS speaks at the rally - a NY1 reporter is holding up a mic, stretching their legs big time to avoid being seen in camera.

Maria Bautista from Racially Just Public Schools. And much respect for the big stretch from the NY1 reporter!

Alexis with CEC 30 speaks at the rally, holding a Schools Beyond Screens sign that says "Teachers Over AI Tutors."

Alexis Kaloyanides from CEC 30.

After the rally, many attendees testified at the PEP meeting. Juno presented the PEP with a petition signed by over 1000 New Yorkers calling for the cancellation of the pilots. You can sign the petition here!

Group shot of a couple dozen A.I. Moratorium protestors smiling at the camera while holding their signs.

If you weren't able to make the PEP meeting, you can still submit public testimony online right here!

As a member of the A.I. Moratorium for NYC Schools myself, I planned to testify, but couldn't stay long enough - the meeting started at 6:30, but open public testimony didn't begin until after 9 pm. Here's what I would have said – and what I submitted through the online form:

My name is Greg Pak, and I organize with the A.I. Moratorium for NYC Schools and Comix Action. I'm here today to ask you to ask the mayor to cancel the "A.i." pilots, which would turn up to 50 thousand of our high schoolers into guinea pigs for "A.i." companies.

I've looked at the websites of these pilot programs, and I don't like 'em. They have "A.i." providing real time feedback on kids' writing. That sounds horrible. We all know that "A.i." writing is generic trash. Kids who learn to write through "A.i." will be left behind.

One of the programs says it'll have kids use "A.i." to solve problems in their communities. That's just propaganda, isn't it? Why do we accept the premise that we need "A.i." to parachute in to help our communities? Why not have students talk directly with community groups? Volunteer for and learn from existing human run programs that actually work?

"A.i." here and almost everywhere is a fake solution that enriches billionaires, not you and me, and we shouldn't accept that kind of garbage propaganda in our schools. Furthermore, if a kid in this program creates some kind of "A.i." solution for a community group that ends up deleting that group's website or emptying its bank account, who assumes liability? Every day we hear about major companies screwing up their businesses with flawed "A.i." products. Why are we allowing some "A.i." company to push kids to push "A.i." garbage on our communities?

There's a lot more to critique - including privacy issues, cognitive decline, environmental harm, the fact that virtually all consumer facing "A.i." is based on theft and encourages shortcuts and fraud, and the fact that many of the "A.i." industry's biggest leaders are literally fascists who hate democracy.

But the bottom line is that we haven't been told nearly enough about these "A.i." pilots. We should not trust these companies. Maaybe they're good people. But they're part of a deeply suspect industry that's all about extraction and privatization. It's a libertarian vision of underfunding schools, undermining unionized teachers, and replacing human contact with tech that these companies profit from. These under-explained pilots should be considered unproven and potentially deeply unsafe.

Our kids should not be guinea pigs.

Please ask the mayor to cancel these pilots before they harm our kids and our communities.

Thank you for your time.

Submit your own testimony to the PEP – and/or tell Mayor Mamdani to cancel the pilots by visiting HeyMamdani.fyi!