Express Tribune Editorials 5th September 2026

NY's AI school ban

New York City's decision to impose a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative AI from pre-school through eighth grade is an unusually blunt response to a complicated problem. The policy affects nearly 600,000 students and prohibits the use of generative AI tools, while allowing limited, supervised programmes for high-school students.

The reasoning is understandable. Schools are not merely places where children acquire information. They are where they learn to think, write, argue, collaborate and persist through problems. If an AI chatbot can produce an essay or solve a mathematical problem within seconds, the danger is that students learn to outsource precisely those cognitive struggles that education is supposed to cultivate. The OECD's latest research warns that generative AI can improve the quality of students' immediate work without necessarily producing corresponding learning gains. Unsupervised use can encourage disengagement and weaken sustained attention and perseverance. There are also legitimate concerns over plagiarism and privacy. A child who cannot distinguish a confident AI fabrication from fact is poorly equipped for an information-saturated world. Schools also have a responsibility to know what technologies are collecting about children.

Yet a blanket ban carries its own risks. AI is not disappearing. Students will encounter it at universities, workplaces, and in everyday life. Keeping it outside the classroom may leave them less prepared to understand its biases and limitations. UNESCO, in fact, recommends developing AI competencies in schools, including ethics and critical judgement along with the ability to understand and create AI systems. Banning AI without first improving teaching quality and developing digital literacy could simply preserve an outdated model of education. At the same time, allowing children unrestricted access to chatbots would be equally irresponsible. It is a difficult balancing act.

Hawala in the 21st century

Hawala networks are once again becoming a source of concerning headlines, as operators of the notorious informal money transfer system are reportedly using digital assets and the latest fintech to move money under the noses of regulators and law enforcement.

A new joint report by the FATF and the OECD says hawala networks are now moving billions of dollars around the world every year. More than 80 per cent of reporting jurisdictions now identify hawala and similar service providers as principal channels for professional money laundering, and the networks continue to innovate to offer a product that is comparable, and arguably even better, than anything the formal banking system has to offer. Among the ways is that hawala operators often offer competitive exchange rates with 'zero fee' instant transfers, unlike banks and other legal money transfer services, which charge fees and taxes, and could take several minutes, hours, or days, depending on the value of a transaction and the countries involved.

Hawala operators can do this because they generally minimise the actual movement of money, allowing operators to avoid converting currencies and letting them pocket the entire exchange rate margin, and since the payments are processed in local currencies, free instant transfer services such as Raast in Pakistan or Zelle in the US allow the operators to offer international payments that are cheaper and faster than any legal provider. Also, contrary to regulators' claims, hawala providers usually don't con their clients - they just don't do much in the way of 'know your customer' checks, which makes them a popular tool for terrorists and large-scale financial criminals, along with working-class folks. This has created what some critics are calling "money laundering as a service".

Local and international regulators need to catch up soon, lest the criminal networks become too big to fail. Meanwhile, licensed and legal providers need to look into ways to offer products that can compete on cost and speed.

An un-American law

It has become a convention for American legislators to act as a vanguard team in defending Israeli interests. In doing so, they often act above partisanship to exhibit their loyalty to the far-right dispensations in Tel Aviv. The legislation passed in the House of Representatives on Thursday intending to block federal aid for universities that boycott Israel is untenable in light of the spirit of the US Constitution. This is quite un-American, to say the least. The First Amendment categorically protects freedom of speech, the press, religion, assembly, and the right to petition the government. Thus, any politically-motivated law that aims to curb the foundational principles of American egalitarianism is ultra vires, reflecting a bias that has crept into and compromised the values of democracy and freedom.

The bill, which passed 237–169 in favour of the "Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act", is meant to penalise citizens and foreign students who have been protesting Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. The recent bloodbath in Gaza at the hands of the Zionist state resulted in the killing of more than 73,000 Palestinians and the displacement of over a million from the besieged enclave. The ICJ had ruled that Israeli measures are tantamount to genocide, and cannot be condoned under any canons of civilised society. The flip side, however, is that the Trump White House, alongside a majority of Congressmen and Senators, see such pro-Palestinian voices as anti-Semitic and extremist in essence. They are out to quell them at the cost of degrading American values of free speech and association.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement underway across the length and breadth of the United States is a civil movement advocating for the protection of life and property for hapless and homeless Palestinians. While conscientious communities on campuses are out to defend the oppressed, the US Congress - acting as a 'Knesset' across the Atlantic - is shamefully undermining its own oath of loyalty to the law of the land and the Constitution.