QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr CLARE (Blaxland—Minister for Education) (14:46): I thank my friend the magnetic member for Menzies for his question. If you want to get an idea about the impact that artificial intelligence has in our schools, check this out. China has just done a study on artificial intelligence involving 26,000 high school students.

What it found is that, when they used AI, homework marks increased by 18 per cent and it reduced exam marks by 20 per cent. So you can see what's happening here in terms of what kids are learning and what they're not. I've spoken here in the parliament and outside the parliament in the last few weeks about why we need a digital detox in our schools, about how the evidence is showing us that the more time children have behind a screen the more likely it is that their results will decline and that they'll fall behind, about the impact it has on concentration and about how it's frying the attention spans of our kids.

There's a reckoning coming here. It's not just about screen time or screen limits in our schools. It's also about what we do with AI.

There's a reason why we don't give kids calculators in kindergarten. They've got to learn how to count before we give them the tools to do it at speed. They've also got to learn how to think.

Working things out manually is a bit like taking your brain to the gym. You've got to develop those mental muscles and learn critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. There's a fair bit of evidence now that AI can undermine this.

It what's called cognitive stunting. That's why a number of jurisdictions across the world, including New York and LA, have just hit the pause button on the use of AI in primary schools. So, when ministers come together in a couple of weeks to talk about a digital detox, we'll look at all of these things, including screen times and AI.

This is all about helping to make sure that our kids learn when they're at school. We've also got to make sure that we protect them when they're online. That's what the digital duty of care bill that is getting introduced tomorrow is all about.

It puts the onus on tech companies to take reasonable steps to make sure that our children aren't exposed to pornography, things that glorify crime, things that promote eating disorders or things that teach boys to hate girls. No parent wants their kids exposed to this sort of sick stuff. They expect us to act here.

This is not political censorship. This is about protecting our kids.