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While six-year-old Chinese children are learning to train AI models to recognise the insects in their gardens, French children of the same age are discovering… how to open a word processor.
This gap is not a detail. It is the symptom of a strategic chasm opening up before our eyes.
On one side, China is rolling out a plan of breathtaking ambition: 12 years of progressive AI learning to turn every citizen into a “digital native”. The result? It already produces 50% of the world’s top AI researchers, against 18% for the United States.
On the other, France has just decided “once and for all” after… a 4-month consultation that gathered 500 contributions. Out of 1.2 million people in the French education system. That is 0.04% of the education community.
The French verdict? AI will be allowed only from Year 9, with compulsory training lasting 30 minutes to 1.5 hours at most to master the “basics of prompting”. In between two reminders about the water consumption of servers.
While Beijing trains entire cohorts of children who will grow up with AI as a natural companion, Paris organises consultations and offers micro-modules lasting an hour and a half.
In 10 years, guess who will truly master this technology that is already redefining the global balance of power? History may judge us on our ability to turn a technological revolution… into an administrative reform.
Find the full transcript of this episode, along with all the sources and plenty more, at: When the Middle Kingdom reinvents education with AI as a tool for civilizational conquest…