Nvidia's Jensen Huang Says It Doesn't Matter That Kids Are Forgetting Basic Math
alex_verem · x · 2026-09-26
On Ezra Klein's podcast, Klein cited a study following 26,000 Chinese students who adopted AI at different times: they finished work faster, but the underlying skills faded and exam scores fell over time. Jensen Huang agreed, asking rhetorically: "Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Does it matter? I don't think it does."
Huang argued kids will trade small skills for bigger ones—losing some finer intellectual dexterity while becoming better systems thinkers, since AI handles the mundane details. The author pushes back: Huang himself learned long division before building one of the most valuable companies on Earth; the study he agreed with found faster homework alongside weaker exams; and a kid who can't do the math can't tell when the machine gets it wrong. "Should the people selling the tools decide which skills our kids lose?"
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