About whether banning ChatGPT in schools is like banning calculators in the 80s.
Has this happened?
Yes 23 (19%)Not sure 23 (19%)No 72 (61%)
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?
About whether banning ChatGPT in schools is like banning calculators in the 80s.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Not remotely equivalent.
Calculators didn't hallucinate and lead students down a path of confusion and wrong answers.
For what it gets correct, it is the replacement for everything. Thought itself can be outsourced. Education's purpose isn't simply to have bodies in seats serving as proxies to a machine.
And if LLMs could fix the hallucination problem, then they are more in a position to replace education itself versus being a tool for the student.