February 17, 2026
School’s out for ethics
Students Are Being Treated Like Guinea Pigs: Inside an AI-Powered Private School
$65k “AI school” slammed as kids’ guinea-pig lab, parents say the lessons glitch and the data leaks
TLDR: Leaked documents allege a $65k AI-run private school uses buggy lessons and iffy data practices, igniting fury over kids being treated like guinea pigs. Commenters are split between outrage at alleged privacy lapses and hype for project-based learning where AI merely assists, making education’s future feel very high-stakes.
Leaked docs say Alpha School — the $65,000-a-year, AI-taught private school applauded by the press and even the Trump administration — is cranking out faulty lessons that sometimes do “more harm than good.” Allegations of training its AI on other people’s online courses without permission and sloppy data practices (think student videos in a link-accessible Google Drive) sent the comments section into meltdown.
The crowd split fast. Outraged parents and teachers called it a “kids-as-beta-testers” disaster, with one commenter blasting the founders as “weirdly cruel” and another dubbing it a “cadre school for Technocracy Inc.” One joker imagined students rehearsing endless trolley-problem ethics while the AI steers them into a wall. Meanwhile, a defender pointed to the dream: ask kids what excites them, guide a project, let AI personalize — not replace — real teaching. A shared parent review became the community’s required reading.
Fuel on the fire? A viral quote from the school’s boss: “All educational content is obsolete.” For critics, that’s Silicon Valley hubris; for fans, it’s a bold bet on tailored learning. Everyone agrees on one thing: if you’re charging luxury-car money for school, the AI can’t be glitching, and student data can’t be floating around in a shared folder. The lesson of the day: trust is the real curriculum.
Key Points
- •Leaked internal documents detail Alpha School’s reliance on AI for teaching.
- •Internal assessments say AI-generated lesson plans can be faulty and sometimes do “more harm than good.”
- •Alpha School charges up to $65,000 per year in tuition.
- •Former employees and documents allege the school scrapes data from online courses without permission to train its AI.
- •Alpha School has been praised by some press and the Trump administration.