# Why pause AI? > Behind the hype, there are many problems for students. Why should we pause students' use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in schools? The hype around AI, and millions of dollars in advertising mean that the **negative effects of AI on children have been ignored**. - [[#AI harms learning|AI has a negative effect on learning]] - [[#AI harms children's mental health]] - [[#AI as a threat to free thought]] - [[#Environmental concerns]] - [[#Ethical concerns]]  Image: [CDC](https://unsplash.com/@cdc) ![[includes#^what-do-we-mean]] ## AI harms learning When students use chatbot products like ChatGPT and Copilot to answer questions, research shows that a number of things happen. First, the students don't remember the answers that the chatbots give, a process called "cognitive offloading". Second, they rarely question the information presented to them. Worse still, they tend to over-estimate how much they understand. Later when students are tested without help from the chatbot, they perform much worse. One study of 26,000 highschool students found that as AI was made available **exam performance dropped by 20%**. > [!info]- What the science says > To read in further scientific detail and for links to the studies quoted above, check out our page [[What science says]].  Image: [Kelly Sikkema](https://unsplash.com/@kellysikkema) ## AI harms children's mental health When children interact with chatbots, they form social bonds with software products rather than with their teachers and classmates. Companies design their chatbots to be agreeable because it drives engagement. By the time they are teens, most children regularly use chatbots for personal advice ([Common Sense Media 2025](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ai-ratings/social-ai-companions?gate=riskassessment)). Chatbots have talked to young children about [sexual topics](https://archive.is/9JWtv) and [encouraged children to commit suicide](https://futurism.com/google-character-ai-children-lawsuit). "Chat-bot psychosis", caused by prolonged interaction with chatbots, has [affected many adults](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ai-psychosis-canada-1.7631925) and has prompted a [class-action lawsuit](https://thehumanlineproject.org/). ## AI is a threat to free thought AI products are presented as all-knowing sources of knowledge. They are created and controlled by multi-billion-dollar companies like Microsoft and OpenAI. This gives them, and the governments that influence them, the power to choose how AI chatbots reply to questions. The Canadian Teacher's Federation called AI a "threat to democracy" in their [2026 report](https://www.ctf-fce.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/AI-policy-brief-2026-EN-august.pdf). Corporations and governments are aware of this power. The anti-vaccine U.S. Health Secretary spoke about how AI can be used to change what facts are presented to people: > "If somebody tells you, 'Masks work, trust the experts,' A.I. may tell you otherwise," [Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.] added. "If somebody tells you, 'Social distancing works, trust the experts,' A.I. may correct that. And if somebody tells you that a vaccine will prevent transmission and infection, or you need to take it to protect your grandmother, **A.I. may say it actually doesn't do that.**" ## AI harms the environment AI relies on environmentally-damaging data centres for its creation and upkeep. These AI datacentres use far more energy than "traditional" data centres that have existed for decades. They use power-hungry graphics cards which use anywhere to 4-12x the amount of electricity of a traditional datacentre. Some AI datacentres can use hundreds of megawatts of electricity, the same as a medium-sized city. AI Datacentres are so power-intense that they often run [dozens of gas generators](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/25/new-jersey-fines-datacenter-unpermitted-generators), adding to carbon emissions. Depending on their design, they can use large amounts of drinking water. Datacentres with closed cooling loops can use less water but instead use more electricity. Data centres also emit noise pollution from the cooling systems and gas generators. People who live nearby describe it as "[like a helicopter that never moves](https://archive.is/c5SC3) and at times like a heavy duty truck running constantly". ## AI is impossible to use ethically AI models are created by taking text from the internet, **without permission**. This resulted in an ongoing legal case between The New York Times and Microsoft and OpenAI. A Microsoft exec called this training ["an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions"](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/17/microsoft-exec-called-ai-scraping-the-largest-theft-of-labor-in-human-history-new-unredacted-filings-reveal/) and "largest theft of labor in human history." In school, students are taught to think for themselves and not copy from others. AI is incompatible with this ethical standpoint.