The first annual Artificial Intelligence Day, held on Friday, May 13, introduced artificial intelligence skills to classrooms around the world. AI Day, an initiative of MIT’s Responsible Artificial Intelligence for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE), is an opportunity for educators to introduce K-12 students from all backgrounds to artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in their lives.
With more than 3,000 registrations from educators in 88 countries – well above the first-year goal of 1,000 registrations in the United States – the initiative has clearly resonated with students and teachers who want to better understand the technology that is increasingly a part of everyday life.
In today’s technology-driven world, children are exposed to and interacting with artificial intelligence in ways they may not realize – from search algorithms to shrewd devices, video recommendations and facial recognition. The goal of Day of AI is to facilitate teachers and students develop AI skills in uncomplicated ways through free curricula and hands-on activities developed by MIT RAISE for grades 3–12.
Professor Cynthia Breazeal, director of MIT RAISE, dean of digital learning and head of the Personal Robots research group at the MIT Media Lab, says: “We are very inspired by the enthusiasm students are expressing about learning about artificial intelligence. We created this program because we want students and their teachers to learn about these technologies in a way that is engaging, meaningful and provides them with an experience that lets them know they, too, can benefit from AI.”
Artificial intelligence is for everyone
The MIT RAISE team designed all AI Day activities to be accessible to teachers and students of all backgrounds and abilities, including those with little or no technology experience. In partnership with education provider i2 Learning, MIT RAISE also offered teachers free professional development sessions before they begin teaching the material. “It really helped me understand GANs and how they work,” says Gar-Hay Kit, a sixth-grade teacher at the Mary Lyon School in Boston. “The slides we were given were easy to work with and my class was engaged in all the activities we did that day.”
Students explored artificial intelligence topics such as deepfakes, generative adversarial networks (GANs), algorithmic bias in datasets, and responsible design on social media platforms. Through hands-on activities and accessible, age-appropriate lessons, they learned what these technologies do, how they are built, what the potential dangers are, and how to design and employ them responsibly – to deliver benefits while mitigating unintended negative consequences.
To celebrate the inaugural AI Day, the RAISE team hosted an event at WBUR CitySpace. Fifth and sixth grade students at Mary Lyon School shared the projects they created over the past few days as part of the AI Day program. They showed that Google QuickDraw was more likely to recognize spotted cows when most users submitted data as drawings of spotted cows; the AI did not have a broad enough dataset to draw from to be able to account for other breeds of cows that have different patterns or solid colors.
In a project on responsible social media and game design, students demonstrated how the gaming platform Roblox recommends clothes for characters based solely on the gender entered by the user. The students’ solution was to change the design of the recommendation system by introducing more options that were less explicitly gendered and allowing all users to have access to all clothing.
When asked what I remembered most about the AI Day activities, sixth-grade student Julia replied: “It was cool how they taught young students about artificial intelligence and how we could watch videos and draw on the website.”
“One of the biggest advantages of this program is that no experience is required. You can come from anywhere and still have access to this career,” Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito said during the event. The availability of AI Day programs is based on the principle: STEM Week in Massachusetts, “Look at Yourself in STEM,” and STEM education goals in Massachusetts in general. When Polito asked fifth- and sixth-graders at Mary Lyon School if they saw themselves in STEM, dozens of hands went up in the air.
Breazeal echoed this sentiment, saying, “No matter your background, we want you to feel empowered and see a place where you can invent and implement these technologies in a responsible way to make a better world.” Working professionals and graduates using AI are not the only ones affected by this technology. RAISE implements research, innovation and outreach programs, such as AI Day, so that elementary and middle school students of all ages can recognize artificial intelligence, evaluate its impact and learn how to employ it responsibly. Addressing the students, Breazeal said: “When you grow up, in our democracy you will have a voice to tell you how you want AI to be used.”
More than just robots… but sometimes robots
Breazeal also moderated a panel of professionals who work with artificial intelligence every day: Daniella DiPaola, a PhD student at the MIT Media Lab; Steve Idowu, senior manager of strategic innovation at Liberty Mutual; Alex Aronov, executive director of data strategy and solutions at Vertex; and Sara Saperstein, director of data analytics, cybersecurity and fraud at MassMutual. Panelists discussed how they can employ artificial intelligence in their work in various ways.
Aronov explained that in a broad sense, AI can facilitate automate “mundane” tasks so that employees can focus on projects that require artistic, inherently “human” thinking. Idowu uses artificial intelligence to improve customer and employee experiences, from claims to risk assessment. DiPaola addressed a common misconception that artificial intelligence refers to sentient robots: when Media Lab developed the social robot Jibo, the artificial intelligence at work was not the robot itself, but natural language understanding, the technology that helps Jibo understand what people say and mean. Throughout her academic career, DiPaola has been interested in how people interact with technology. “Artificial intelligence helps us discover things about ourselves,” she said.
The panelists also touched on the broader goals of AI Day – not only to introduce younger generations to the STEM concepts at the core of AI technology, but also to facilitate them imagine a future where these skills are used in recent ways. “It’s not just about math and computer science, but about thinking deeply about what we do and how we do it,” Saperstein said.
Jeffrey Leiden, executive chairman of Vertex Pharmaceuticals (founding sponsor of Day of AI and the CitySpace event), said: “I don’t think any of us could have predicted twenty years ago how significant AI and machine learning would be. in our lives. We have Siri on our phones, artificial intelligence can tell us what’s in our refrigerators, it can automatically change the temperature on our thermostats,” he said. As someone who works in the healthcare industry, she is particularly excited about how artificial intelligence can detect medical events before they occur to enable patients to be proactively treated.
By introducing STEM subjects as early as elementary and middle school, teachers can create pathways for students to pursue STEM learning in high school and beyond. Future career opportunities as scientists and researchers working in fields ranging from life sciences to robotics can facilitate students bring their ideas to the table and find even better solutions to science’s biggest questions.
The first Artificial Intelligence Day was a huge success, with teachers sharing photos and stories on social media showing their students’ enthusiasm from around the world using #AIDay. Further AI Day events are planned in Australia and Hong Kong later this summer, and the MIT RAISE team is already planning recent learning modules, resources, and community-building activities ahead of next year’s event. Plans include engaging the growing global community in language translations, greater cultural localization of curriculum modules, and more.