This week some New York City teachers are taking advantage of their union’s latest perk: training offered in partnership with tech giants on how artificial intelligence can help them with their jobs.

Over the summer, the American Federation of Teachers announced it would partner with Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic to create the National Academy for AI Instruction. While some educators were eager for tips on how to reduce paperwork and tailor instruction to diverse learners, others worried about the potential dangers such a pairing could create. Teachers have raised concerns about AI’s effect on the environment, students’ critical thinking skills, teen mental health, and even the future of their jobs as educators.

In its first seminar, the union’s trainers and tech company representatives sought to assuage those concerns. The 55 attendees started the morning by reading aloud a mission statement for the new academy that vows to lead the “safe, fair” use of AI and “keep the human side of teaching strong.”

Vincent Pilato, the academy's chief operating officer, said the goal is to help teachers use AI ethically and save time on back-end work, but not replace them in the classroom. He encouraged them to think of AI as another tool to reach children.

“Whether it was chalk and slate, textbooks, overhead projectors, computers, and the internet, AI isn't replacing any of them,” he said  ”It's our newest tool in our toolbox.”

As the union forges ahead with the technology, the education department has been deliberating over an official policy. City education officials initially blocked the use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform by students in schools in 2023, then lifted the ban soon after.

Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos recently said she plans to release more guidance on AI soon.

In the meantime, teachers said, they and their students have already been experimenting with it.

Jessica Tran, who teaches English to students from immigrant families in Queens, uses AI for lesson planning and for communicating with families. She said her students speak a range of languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and French. She uses AI to translate lessons into the various languages and target different skill levels, which she said saves time to focus on the kids more.

“ There's certain students that I want to contact home about and see if maybe there's some issues that I can be aware of when I'm teaching them,” she said. She said having more time for outreach helps her learn important context about her students. On one of those calls, she recently learned a student was living in a homeless shelter. “He acts out. He comes in late and he's very defiant. Now I feel like I have more patience for him,” she said.

But while she finds AI useful as a teacher, she said she’s worried about students’ use of the technology. “Some of the students will use AI and pass it off as their own, and I feel like they're not really learning,” she said. To avoid that, she often has students complete assignments on paper in class.

Overall, she said she’s glad the union has launched the new academy. “It’s great,” she said. “I feel like I have more resources in my hands.”

Another participant, Dennis Teufel, a special education teacher in Queens, said he uses AI to help with some of the paperwork required for individual education plans for students with disabilities. He also uses it to search for new approaches to his lessons.  ”Units that were taking me hours and maybe days to create are a matter of minutes at this point,” he said.

He has concerns about data privacy. “We have medical history, we have grades, we have addresses, things like that,” he said. “So who's in charge of that information? Who's collecting it and what are they doing with it?”

The new center – backed by a $23 million investment from the three tech companies – is housed at the headquarters of the city’s teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, and will eventually occupy a full floor. Union officials said they plan to offer similar in-person trainings monthly, plus some virtual options, with more opportunities to come after they build out the new space.

Outside the academy’s workshops, some teachers are skeptical of, even alarmed by, the partnership with the corporate giants. Earlier this fall, Manhattan elementary school teacher Kyle DeAngelis submitted a letter to AFT President Randi Weingarten on behalf of worried teachers, calling for trainers to address reports of racial bias in AI, questions about AI companies using teachers’ free labor to train more bots through the academy, and problems about the amount of water and electricity used to power the technology. “The AI Institute must equip educators to do more than simply use these technologies unquestioningly,” the letter stated.

DeAngelis said he is not wholly opposed to teachers using AI, but he believes the center should also be a space to question and criticize the new technology.

During the announcement about the academy last summer, union leaders and tech company executives said they hoped teachers would be forthright with their concerns, to help them improve their tools and protect children.

Pilato said the two-day seminar will cover “guardrails” for safe and ethical use plus hands-on introductions to Microsoft Agent, NotebookLM and Chatbox. He said the workshop will also go over a few tools teachers can use with students, but said the union discourages the use of chatbots with students, given growing concerns about safety and the impact of AI on adolescents’ mental health, including lawsuits over chatbots’ roles in teen suicides.

“Everyone has concerns, and we’re going to address them,” he said. “ It's always going to be the teachers, the educators at the heart of what we do, and it's going to be AI that enhances the way that we teach.”

This story has been updated to correct the name of the tools the National Academy for AI Instruction will be training teachers to use.