Labor Department eyes AI curriculum akin to China’s teachings

The Department of Labor is working closely with two other agencies to develop AI education for U.S. students that mirrors China’s curriculum for teaching the emerging technology, its acting secretary told lawmakers Thursday.

During his confirmation hearing to be the permanent DOL secretary, Keith Sonderling told members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee that the Trump administration is taking AI education “very seriously” from a “national competitive” and workforce development perspective. 

In an exchange with Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Sonderling said the DOL has partnered with the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education to “develop that AI curriculum that China has.” 

“And they’re teaching them in the second grade,” Sonderling said. “And we’re not doing that.”

The big challenge, he noted, is ensuring that AI education is up to date — no small feat given how quickly the technology is evolving. 

To address that issue, Sonderling said the DOL’s yet-to-be-launched AI workforce hub allows the agency to enter into memorandums of understanding with tech developers and companies. The information gleaned from those MOUs should give Labor officials a better idea of what the private sector needs from its workers.

The agency wants “to make sure that American workers and students have those baseline skills they need,” Sonderling said. “Because right now, you have kids in high school, you have kids in middle school who think they’re not going to have a job, and you have employees who think they’re going to lose their job. 

“So the fear on both parts is not helping anybody,” he added. “And to be able to get rid of that fear, we need to have education. To be able to get that education, we need the information from these companies designing it.”

Eventually, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will “take this over” and navigate the job loss vs. job augmentation debate with real data behind it, Sonderling said. He pointed specifically to a request for information published last week seeking comment on adding an AI component to the BLS’s American Time Use Survey.

“We need that data,” Hawley said. “We need it in order to make informed choices, and I think we’ve got a lot of hard choices to make with regard to AI.”

Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville was particularly enthusiastic about Sonderling’s plans for a federal artificial intelligence curriculum, telling him that if he’s elected governor of Alabama in November, he plans to push for AI education in elementary school. 

“You know, our education system’s abysmal right now. It’s going to heck in a handbasket. I worked it for 35 years,” the former Auburn football coach said. “I know our federal government’s being broken because of all this fraud. But we have to be able to educate our kids in this AI.”

“Education needs to lead to jobs,” Sonderling replied.