Is AI Making Students Dumb? Estonia's Pilot Project and Europe's Inconsistent Responses

In Tartu, Estonia's second-largest city, AI is already part of regular lessons. The film crew visits a tenth-grade biology class. There, students work with a chatbot that looks like ChatGPT but does not give answers right away. Instead, it asks follow-up questions and forces the teenagers to debate with the machine, each on a completely individual basis. The report describes the goal this way: students should not lose the ability to think for themselves, to be critical and to analyze.

Estonia developed this learning chatbot together with the US company OpenAI. Asked the obvious question about data protection, Estonia's education minister says it is not a problem because data sovereignty remains in Estonia. She sees the partnership as an opportunity.

According to the film, some researchers in the field of AI and education share this positive view. One expert advocates personalized learning with AI and suggests a starting point: from around the age of ten or eleven, that is, from fifth grade. This, the expert says, would also change the role of teachers.

The report contrasts this with the problems being reported across Europe. Newspapers write about teachers who can no longer keep up with detecting AI-assisted cheating. But one interviewed expert stresses that it is not only teachers who are overwhelmed, but everyone involved.

The film cites Spain as an example: there, scientists are warning of so-called "AI-Lessphobia." The term refers to the growing number of students who fear they will no longer be able to manage their homework and presentations at all without AI.

One of the experts interviewed describes the danger in more detail. The great temptation of this technology, the expert says, is that people let AI do precisely the tasks they are not particularly motivated to do. But if those tasks build core competencies, a kind of "deskilling effect" really does occur, meaning a loss of skills. The report adds further risks: dependence and mental complacency – "We're becoming lazy thinkers."

It is not only students who turn to AI. According to the film, more and more teachers in Ireland are using AI for grading, sparking debates over whether this is ethically acceptable. In German-speaking countries, too, tech-savvy teachers use AI, for example to create lesson plans or worksheets in seconds.

One expert, however, reports on the downsides. The expert says they receive a lot of anecdotal feedback, from both students and teachers, that generated worksheets are circulating that contain errors and in which parts of the prompts are even still visible. The report concludes from this that teachers lack rules, support and knowledge – including about the dangers of AI.

A central problem is wrong answers. One of the interviewees suspects that some people still believe ChatGPT and similar tools behave like a search engine and deliver a true, factually correct result. In reality, however, what they provide is not one hundred percent verified factual knowledge.

The film cites historical topics as a particularly sensitive example. Questions about the Holocaust, but also about other historical truths such as the Srebrenica massacre, are often distorted or even presented completely incorrectly by AI. The report bases this on studies, including by UNESCO. The teacher in Estonia also speaks of AI's so-called hallucinations. The film's conclusion: the chatbot cannot be relied upon.

One of the experts answers the core question clearly: AI can make students dumb, and given the currently very uncontrolled and unregulated applications, the expert sees this as a major danger. Another voice is more measured: there are visible benefits for everyone involved, but also a great many disadvantages and risks.

According to the report, there is no common European strategy for AI in the classroom. Education is largely the responsibility of individual EU member states, and their responses vary accordingly. One expert sums up developments in Scandinavia this way: the countries initially rushed ahead and then backtracked "bit by bit."

Denmark, for instance, was initially seen as a pioneer but is now significantly tightening its rules; exams are to be monitored more strictly. Norway goes even further: as one of the first countries in the world, it is banning AI in the classroom entirely up to seventh grade – citing declining performance in reading, writing and math. One expert interviewed comments that a ban is always a last resort.

Poland is taking a different path: there, teachers receive AI training lasting several weeks, and thousands of schools are equipped with AI labs.

For the report, it is clear that AI is changing learning and that students need skills to use it wisely and efficiently. One expert argues that schools would first need a structural change in what they offer, and puts forward concrete demands:

• Abolish homework: Instead, there should be all-day schools in which individualized practice takes place within the school setting for all children and teenagers under equal conditions.
• Slim down curricula: These are "insanely overloaded," so that much is learned only superficially. As a result, understanding connections, problem-solving, transfer and reflection in particular often fall by the wayside. This can only be changed by reducing the amount of material.
• Keep pen and paper: Alongside all the adaptation, traditional tools are still needed.

In the film's assessment, it is precisely Estonia's mix of new tools and traditional methods that seems to be bringing success: the country once again topped the European rankings in the PISA study. Nevertheless, the report closes with a caveat. Even this is probably not a blueprint for the learning of the future – the technology is evolving too rapidly for that. This also leaves open the question raised at the outset: whether today's students are not all a kind of guinea pig.