Shammika Munugoda, Founder of PebbleYard, presents four questions parents and teachers should ask before giving a child an AI tool. A trial published in PNAS last year gave nearly 1,000 high school maths students access to GPT-4 while they practiced; their practice scores jumped 48%, but when the AI was removed and the same exam was set for everyone, students who’d had it scored 17% lower than students who never touched it. A second group whose AI tutor gave hints instead of answers did 127% better than the control group on practice problems, but showed no difference from students who’d had no AI at all on the exam. In a Stanford preregistered trial with 900 tutors and 1,800 students in the US, the AI never spoke to a student and instead whispered suggestions to the tutor mid-session; students were 4 percentage points more likely to master the topic, and 9 points more likely for students of lower-rated tutors, at roughly $20 per tutor per year. Munugoda argues AI is useful as a fast first draft of practice material, while the learning still comes from the child.