Nick Clegg Doesn't Want to Talk About Superintelligence

"In theory, a kid sitting in a provincial town in rural Brazil should be able to receive the same responsive interaction with the Efekta AI teacher as someone living in Mayfair. Trying to shut out AI from schools is senseless. It's about how you incorporate AI into education. Bad teachers will use it badly, and good teachers will use it very well—as they did whiteboards and calculators."

"I'm asking what it might mean for students not to develop foundational skills. If you go back to the time when calculators were invented, [people thought that] kids are never going to be able to do mental arithmetic. But that didn't turn out to be the case. It will have an effect, of course. But I think the net effect should be positive in terms of educational performance."

"Of course there are perils—particularly, vulnerable adults and children becoming emotionally dependent and invested in a relationship with something that has an avatar, humanoid presence in their lives. At a societal level, we should take a very precautionary approach. I think you should have clear age-gating on how agentic AIs are made available to young people."

AI education tools like Efekta AI offer democratizing potential, enabling students in rural areas to access quality instruction equivalent to privileged populations. Rather than excluding AI from schools, the focus should be on implementation quality—good teachers leverage AI effectively while poor teachers misuse it. Historical precedent with calculators suggests foundational skills remain intact despite technological adoption. However, children face unique vulnerabilities including emotional dependency on humanoid AI interfaces. Effective safeguards require age-gating agentic AIs and regulatory frameworks enforced through platform choke points like iOS and Android, rather than ineffective blanket bans lacking age verification mechanisms.

Read at WIRED