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AI

OpenAI and Microsoft bankroll new AI training for teachers

Teachers attend an AI workshop with Microsoft in New York, July 7, 2025. (NYT)
9 July 2025 00:09

(THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE)

The tech industry's campaign to embed artificial intelligence chatbots in classrooms is accelerating.

The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest US teachers union, said Tuesday that it would start an AI training hub for educators with $23 million in funding from three leading chatbot makers: Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic.

The union said it planned to open the National Academy for AI Instruction in New York City, starting with hands-on workshops for teachers this fall on how to use AI tools for tasks like generating lesson plans.

The New York hub will be “an innovative new training space where school staff and teachers will learn not just about how AI works, but how to use it wisely, safely and ethically,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in an interview.

“It will be a place where tech developers and educators can talk to each other, not past each other.”

The industry funding is part of a drive by US tech companies to reshape education with generative AI chatbots. These tools, including OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Copilot, can produce humanlike essays, research summaries and class quizzes.

In February, California State University, the largest US university system, said it would provide ChatGPT for some 460,000 students. This spring, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the third-largest US school district, began rolling out Google's Gemini AI for more than 100,000 high schoolers.

Last week, the White House urged US companies and nonprofit groups to provide AI grants, technology and training materials for schools, teachers and students. Since then, dozens of companies have signed on, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI.

Some tech executives hope AI will become the fourth R.

“Reading and writing and arithmetic and learning how to use AI,” said Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer. “You're going to have to learn those skills over time, and I do think our education system is the best place to be able to do that.”

But some researchers have warned that generative AI tools are so new in schools that there is little evidence of concrete educational benefit - and significant concern about risk.

Chatbots can produce plausible-sounding misinformation, which could mislead students. A recent study by law school professors found that three popular AI tools made “significant” errors summarising a law casebook and posed an “unacceptable risk of harm” to learning.

Outsourcing tasks including research and writing to AI chatbots may also hinder critical thinking, a recent study from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University found.

Microsoft will provide $12.5 million for the training effort over the next five years, and OpenAI will contribute $8 million in funding and $2 million in technical resources. Anthropic will add $500,000 for the first year of the effort.

First Glimpse

On Monday, about 200 New York City teachers taking an AI workshop at their union headquarters got a glimpse of what the new national effort might look like. A presenter from Microsoft opened by showing an AI explainer video featuring Minecraft, the popular game owned by Microsoft.

Next, the teachers tried generating emails and lesson plans using Khanmigo, an AI tool for schools for which Microsoft has provided support. Then they experimented with Copilot for similar tasks.

Source: NEW YORK TIMES
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