Donald Trump Wants Your Children To Get AI In School So He Looks Like Rambo To Them Too

Even though the Trump administration wants to shut down the US Department of Education and is slashing funding for education and science across the federal government, the White House has also drafted an executive order that would mandate schools integrate artificial intelligence in K-12 education, because all our kids need to learn about the technology that will replace them.

The Washington Post (gift link) got its hands on a copy of the draft order, titled “Advancing artificial intelligence education for American youth,” and it sounds like it originated with tech companies who want to sell some systems to every school in America, ideally with a taxpayer subsidy:

AI is “driving innovation across industries, enhancing productivity, and reshaping the way we live and work,” the draft order reads. “To ensure the United States remains a global leader in this technological revolution, we must provide our Nation’s youth with opportunities to cultivate the skills and understanding necessary to use and create the next generation of AI technology.”

I remember in third or fourth grade when we all had to study base-2 in math because In The Future we would all need to know how to operate computers. In the five decades since, that instruction has turned out to be invaluable for getting the joke “There are 10 kinds of people in this world — those who understand binary and those who don’t.”

The Post notes that the draft is marked “predecisional,” meaning that the order could change before it’s signed, or it could just go into a drawer somewhere to surface again only after it’s found stuffed into a box with top secret nuclear weapons information and a menu from the 2029 Grand Opening of Trump Tower Vladivostok.

The order would direct federal agencies to figure out how to train kids in using AI, how to cram AI into teaching whether it makes sense or not, and of course to create partnerships with private sector companies to bring the wonders of AI slop to schools. It would even create a TASK FORCE on AI, which would include “the secretaries of education, agriculture, labor and energy,” at least once someone finally teaches Linda McMahon that “AI” is not pronounced like the steak sauce.

The TASK FORCE would be chaired by Trump’s director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Michael Kratsios, and would also include David Sacks, the other South African tech billionaire who was going to be Trump’s “White House AI & Crypto Czar” until somebody changed the job title from “czar” to “adviser.” He will probably be there to help make Trump some money from the scheme.

There’s a lot of stuff about building “public-private partnerships” with industry and universities (if any are left) and nonprofits (ditto) that would come up with ways to teach students “foundational AI literacy and critical thinking skills,” unless the critical thinking leads them to doubt authority figures who lie to them constantly. The Post also says the order

also instruct the education secretary, Linda McMahon, to prioritize federal grant funding for training teachers on how to use AI, including for administrative tasks and teacher training and evaluation. All educators should undergo professional development to integrate AI into all subject areas, the draft order says.

This is where we again jump in to point out that the draft EO is calling for a raft of new teacher training grants and training programs at a time when existing teacher training grants are being thrown into the wood chipper and the Education Department’s key functions are supposedly slated to be outsourced to other Cabinet agencies (whose staff and budgets are also being slashed) in preparation of the department’s eventual drowning in Steve Bannon’s hot tub.

Also, for what it’s worth, the Ed Department’s Office of Education Technology has already been dismantled. Seems like maybe that could have been useful in this quest, somehow.

The draft even calls for establishing an annual competition, the “Presidential AI Challenge,” for both students and educators to show off their mad AI skills. Winners might be invited to the White House or might be ignored if Trump has a pressing golf tournament at one of his Trash Palaces. The winners could probably whip up a picture of themselves being awarded medals by the Great Leader, although the real challenge would be creating a large-language model stupid enough to spit out a realistic simulation of the speech Trump might give to laud the winners and call for the immediate military invasion of Latveria.

OPEN THREAD.

Share

Here Comes The Old Republican Bitcoin Pump And Dump!

Wonkette Sees Education Department As Half-Full

[WaPo (gift link)]

Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if you prefer a one-time donation, you and your AI lover can click this here button to support what passes for intelligence around here.

I’m Sorry, Dave, You CAN Donate