We have nothing to fear. That is what the tech titans are telling us, just as they did with social media. They say the development and proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) is a gift to the world. But, like the Trojans, should we just accept a shinier, bigger, more powerful horse without really pausing to question it? To wonder what is inside and what it may do to teaching and future careers? It is truly fantastic to have the ability to do in one minute what used to take days. We do not have to wrestle long and hard with problems – we can just ask a large language model (LLM) and it will tell us. We do not have to spend our lives doing boring things like grappling with ideas and seeking solutions based on our unique human knowledge. Maybe teachers will no longer be needed. But have we not heard that before? Have we not heard that social media was going to connect us, help us to share our lives, bring the world closer? We may be a school nearing its 400th anniversary, yet we are not stuck in stuffy traditional ways. We are a Google school with 1:1 devices, open to the gifts that innovation and technology so clearly offer. We are also intrigued by what AI can offer, but also mindful that social media was initially seen as “transformative”. But there is something rather coercive about the offer of AI. There is no real option to refuse, and there is a breathless excitement from all corners about a technology that undermines the trust we used to place in our shared humanity. That is why we have formed a taskforce to coordinate our approach. ‘Machines in human guise’ Our first goal has been to raise awareness of the harms which we call “machines in human guise”. We advocate against any of our pupils chatting to or forming any relationships with AI. We also want to increase awareness of how AI places barriers between true human connections and atomises our community. Thinking and critical reasoning are universally prized skills across all careers and life in general. They are also inherently human. Meta-analysis papers are emerging in quick succession, and they all point to the detrimental effect which LLMs are having on these very skills. At the core of our decision on smartphones was the protection of children when they are in our care. If we accepted that unfettered access to smartphones was harmful, then we should take all steps to immediately prevent this harm. The same principle can be applied to AI. But, when we started to argue that smartphones contain risks to young minds, some people told us we were mad. We decided to use Yondr pouches in 2023 in the face of some opposition. Yet there is now a broader agreement that social media and smartphones should not be freely used in schools. Many thought we were tackling smartphones because we had a hidden problem. Although we were ‘outstanding’ in all categories at the time, now ‘exceptional’ in four of seven areas, the level of resources we seemed willing to invest made sense only if we had a huge problem. Phone ban For what it is worth, we did not – we had the same problem that I think all schools without effective bans on phones have. Smartphones are designed to harness the powerful habit loops of our brains, rendering executive function or self-control almost useless. They are relatively small and can easily be hidden away in an instant. Even with a phone ban, the compliance rate was very low. We considered banning them on site altogether, but with over 30 feeder primary schools and many of our students coming from villages by bus, that felt mindless. We also considered using phone “jails” or lockers for them, but we wanted pupils to keep possession of their devices. On a wider level, it is not our responsibility as schools to police smartphones or AI. The government should instead pressure social media companies and legislate against harmful behaviour. That helps us since we can point at laws, even if very tricky to enforce, and say that we, as a society, want to protect young people from the obvious harms. It is the signal these bans send that is most useful. Ultimately, as a country and a species, we will have to decide what AI is for and how we can limit its harms. Until then, our school will always embrace the progress that comes with innovation and technology. But perhaps the one nod to tradition we will always retain is to put the human at the heart of our values.