News:
Here are drafts of letters we’ve written to our kids’ teachers/administration
Here is testimony we gave against the adoption of AI contracts. in NYC. The adoption of contracts failed by ONE vote after parents and students spoke out against it.
Here are drafts of resolutions you can introduce to your school board.
Here is an editorial by Liat Olenick calling for a moratorium on AI in NYC public schools.
Podcasts, books, and useful links
Apen Digital: Introduction to Generative AI.
Bender, E. M., & Hanna, A. (2025). The AI Con: How to fight big tech’s hype and create the future we want. Random House.
Hao, K. (2025) Empire of AI. Penguin.
Ezra Klein podcast “We Really Have to Rethink the Purpose of Education.”
You can access more literature on why to resist AI here and here, and a useful mapping of AI skepticism here.
Research on learning and cognition
Barshay, J. (2024, September 11). Kids who use ChatGPT as a study assistant do worse on tests. Popular Science. https://www.popsci.com/technology/kids-who-use-chatgpt-as-a-study-assistant-do-worse-on-tests/
Gerlich, M. (2025). AI tools in society: Impacts on cognitive offloading and the future of critical thinking. Societies, 15(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15010006
Grose, J. (2025, May 14). A.I. will destroy critical thinking in K-12. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/opinion/trump-ai-elementary.html
Hedrih, V. (2024, September 17). Study finds ChatGPT eases students’ cognitive load, but at the expense of critical thinking. PsyPost. https://www.psypost.org/study-finds-chatgpt-eases-students-cognitive-load-but-at-the-expense-of-critical-thinking/
Hulscher, N. (2025). MIT study finds artificial intelligence use reprograms the brain, leading to cognitive decline. Science, Public Health Policy and the Law. https://publichealthpolicyjournal.com/study-finds-artificial-intelligence-use-reprograms-the-brain-leading-to-cognitive-decline/
Oakley, B., Johnston, M., Chen, K., Jung, E., and Sejnowski, T. The Memory Paradox: Why Our Brains Need Knowledge in an Age of AI (May 11, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5250447 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5250447
Research on information literacy
Bender, E. M. (2024, November 5). Information literacy and chatbots as search. Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000: The Newsletter. https://buttondown.com/maiht3k/archive/information-literacy-and-chatbots-as-search/
Research on AI in education
Boninger, F., Molnar, A., & Williamson, B. (2024, March 5). Time for a pause: Without effective public oversight, AI in schools will do more harm than good. National Education Policy Center. https://nepc.info/node/13144
Conrad, K. (2024). A blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights for education. Critical AI, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.1215/2834703X-11205245
Guest, O., et al. (2025). Against the uncritical adoption of ‘AI’ technologies in academia. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17065099
Kaufman, J. H., Woo, A., Eagan, J., Lee, S., & Kassan, E. B. (2025). Uneven adoption of artificial intelligence tools among U.S. teachers and principals in the 2023–2024 school year. RAND Corporation. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA134-25.html
Kelly, C., Bruisch, K., & Leahy, C. (2025, September 4). We are lecturers in Trinity College Dublin. It is our responsibility to resist AI. The Irish Times.
Laird, E., Dwyer, M., & Quay-de la Vallee, H. (2025). Hand in hand: Schools’ embrace of AI connected to increased risks to students. Center for Democracy & Technology. https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/FINAL-CDT-2025-Hand-in-Hand-Polling-100225-accessible.pdf
Lin, L. (2024, May 15). A quarter of U.S. teachers say AI tools do more harm than good in K-12 education. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/05/15/a-quarter-of-u-s-teachers-say-ai-tools-do-more-harm-than-good-in-k-12-education/
Rosario, A. (2025, September 3). I’m a high schooler. AI is demolishing my education. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/09/high-school-student-ai-education/684088/
Singer, N. (2025, May 19). How Miami schools are leading 100,000 students into the A.I. future. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/technology/ai-miami-schools-google-gemini.html
Utrata, A. (2025, June 6). The anti-dystopian’s guide to GenAI for students & educators: What is GenAI, why is it bad, and how can higher education resist it? The Anti-Dystopians. https://alinautrata.substack.com/p/the-anti-dystopians-guide-to-genai
Research on mental health
Fowler, G. A. (2025, October 2). I broke ChatGPT’s new parental controls in minutes. Kids are still at risk. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/10/02/chatgpt-parental-controls-teens-openai/
Hayes, K. (2025, August 9). Must-reads and some thoughts on chatbots, addiction, and withdrawal. Organizing My Thoughts. https://organizingmythoughts.org/must-reads-and-some-thoughts-on-chatbots-addiction-and-withdrawal/
Hill, K. (2025, August 26). A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/technology/chatgpt-openai-suicide.html
Jargon, J., & Kessler, S. (2025, August 28). A troubled man, his chatbot and a murder-suicide in Old Greenwich. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chatgpt-ai-stein-erik-soelberg-murder-suicide-6b67dbfb
Klee, M. (2025, June 22). He had a mental breakdown talking to ChatGPT. Then police killed him. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/chatgpt-obsession-mental-breaktown-alex-taylor-suicide-1235368941/
Reiley, L. (2025, August 24). What my daughter told ChatGPT before she took her life. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/opinion/chat-gpt-mental-health-suicide.html
Sanford, J. (2025, August 27). Why AI companions and young people can make for a dangerous mix. Stanford Medicine. https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2025/08/ai-chatbots-kids-teens-artificial-intelligence.html
Yousif, N. (2025, August 27). Parents of teenager who took his own life sue OpenAI. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgerwp7rdlvo
Research on how AI works
Hicks, M. T., Humphries, J., & Slater, J. (2024). ChatGPT is bullshit. Ethics and Information Technology, 26, 38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5
Marcus, G. (2025, May 5). Why do large language models hallucinate? Marcus on AI. https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/why-do-large-language-models-hallucinate?r=8tdk6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
Tarnoff, B. (2023, July 25). Weizenbaum’s nightmares: How the inventor of the first chatbot turned against AI. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/25/joseph-weizenbaum-inventor-eliza-chatbot-turned-against-artificial-intelligence-ai
Research on AI and accuracy
Jaźwińska, K., & Chandrasekar, A. (2025, March 6). AI search has a citation problem: We compared eight AI search engines. They’re all bad at citing news. Columbia Journalism Review. https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/we-compared-eight-ai-search-engines-theyre-all-bad-at-citing-news.php
Picchi, A. (2024, February 27). AI chatbots are serving up wildly inaccurate election information, new study says. CBS News / MoneyWatch. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ai-chatbots-inaccurate-election-information-proof-news/
Wallace, M., & Peeler, M. (2024). Harriet Tubman’s deep voice. Critical AI, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.1215/2834703X-11205217
Davenport, C. (2025, October 2). Excel’s AI: 20% of the time, it works every time. Spacebar. https://www.spacebar.news/excel-ai-twenty-percent-of-the-time-it-works-every-time/
Paul, A. (2023, January 26). ‘Historical’ AI chatbots aren’t just inaccurate—they are dangerous. Popular Science. https://www.popsci.com/technology/historical-figures-app-chatgpt-ethics/
Warner, J. (2024, June 14). Just say no to historical figure chatbots: Against digital necromancy. Engaged Education. https://engagededucation.substack.com/p/just-say-no-to-historical-figure
Welborn, A. (2023, March 9). ChatGPT and fake citations. Duke Library Blog. https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2023/03/09/chatgpt-and-fake-citations/
Research on AI bias
Klee, M. (2025, May 16). Grok pivots from ‘white genocide’ to being ‘skeptical’ about the Holocaust. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-x-grok-white-genocide-holocaust-1235341267/
Warr, M., Oster, N., & Isaac, R. (2024). Implicit bias in large language models: Experimental proof and implications for education. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 0(0), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2024.2395295
Research on environmental impacts of AI
Alistair, A. (2025). The Ecological Cost of AI Is Much Higher Than You Think. Truth Dig.
Cole, J. (2025). AI Will Only Intensify Climate Change. The Tech Moguls Don’t Care. The Nation.
Fleming, J. (2025). How the AI Boom Threatens to Entrench
Fossil Fuels and Compromise Climate Goals. Center for Biological Diversity.
Luccioni, A., Jernite, Y., and Strubell, E. (2024). Power Hungry Processing: Watts Driving the Cost of AI Deployment?. In ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT ’24), June 3–6, 2024, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 21 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3630106.3658542 https://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume24/23-0069/23-0069.pdf
Milman, O. (December 8, 2025). More than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacenters. The Guardian.
Parshall, A. (2024, June 11). What do Google’s AI answers cost the environment? Scientific American.
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