Google Brain's Co-Founder Won't Let His Kids Use a Calculator — Here's Why

Andrew Ng co-founded Google Brain, co-founded the online learning platform Coursera, and is regarded as one of the most influential voices in AI today — he has personally taught machine learning to millions of people around the world.

And yet, when teaching his two young children — ages 5 and 7 — to do math, he doesn't hand them a calculator. He sits down and works through each multiplication problem with them, one at a time, so they find the answer themselves.

The reason, he said plainly in a recent interview: "AI models are terrible for learning."

Not because AI is bad at the task — quite the opposite, it can do the work fast and well. But he points out: students who use AI to do their homework tend to score higher on the assignment itself, while their long-term ability to recall and apply that knowledge is markedly weaker. Letting AI do the work — what he calls "cognitive offloading" — gets the task done quickly, but skips the mental exercise a child's brain actually needs.

This is exactly the line TOTAL has held since before AI became a buzzword. At TOTAL, every child builds capability through the 4Gs — Gratitude, Growth Mindset, Grit, Greatness — and none of those four qualities comes from a shortcut. Growth Mindset and Grit only take shape when a child faces a hard problem alone, gets it wrong, corrects it, and tries again. That's why TOTAL always says: we're not afraid of missing a target; we're afraid of skipping a lesson.

For families with older children — preparing for IELTS, or for the path ahead in higher education — Ng's story holds another angle worth noting. He points out that when AI can do part of the work (say, 30–40%), the remaining 60–70% — the part only a human can do: real communication, judgment, persistence, reading context — doesn't lose value. It becomes more valuable.

TOTAL believes: AI is a tool for acceleration, not a substitute for learning. That's the simple principle TOTAL holds consistently in every classroom — from Kiddy to Senior: use the tool where it belongs, but never let it do the part a child needs to grow through on their own.

Source: Andrew Ng, co-founder of Google Brain, interview on August 28, 2026, on the "Silicon Valley Girl" channel (YouTube). Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-wv_szZ0V0&t=844s

Learn more about TOTAL's philosophy of holistic education →