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Course: AI for education > Unit 1
Lesson 1: Welcome to the course!AI in five
Google ClassroomWhat is AI, and what are its potential risks and benefits? By aiEDU
AI in 5 minutes
Get ready for the future in just 5 minutes.
What does AI mean?
The term “Artificial Intelligence (AI)” has a lot of different meanings depending on who’s talking.
Yeah, AI can mean “smart creepy robots” sometimes. But technology isn’t quite there yet. It turns out “AI” might mean a lot more than you think.
When computer scientists and politicians talk about "AI", they usually mean the technologies we use every day like FacelD, TikTok's algorithm, and Google search. And sometimes they mean killer robots, unfortunately.
Computers have a lot of clout in your everyday life: they decide what posts to show you, whether you've been out of school too much, and predict whether you might commit a crime.
But what's special about Al compared with other computer programs? Al allows computers to learn from past experience.
AI learns from experience
Think about how a person becomes a great musician or gets a top rank in a video game. Practice, practice, practice. Al allows a computer to practice making a decision or taking a guess millions and millions of times until it gets good.
Computer scientists use "data" to train an Al. In short, data just means information. What can data look like?
- Biometrics
- Numbers
- Images
- Audio
- Text
We can use these types of data to train computers to do almost anything through practice.
Here are some examples!
| Data & Practice | Decision/Prediction |
|---|---|
| Faces: The computer analyzes lots of faces and practices telling people apart. | Face recognition: The computer can learn your face and say, “Yes, that’s you!" |
| Videos: the computer analyzes millions and millions of videos to see what kinds of people like which types of videos. They figure that out by seeing how long people watch each video. | Recommendations: The computer learns to make a good guess about what videos you'll like the most, and recommends them in your feed or FYP. |
| Text: the computer analyzes some English words and their translation in Spanish, automatically learning which phrases mean what. | Translation: The computer learns how to translate almost any text you can throw at it from English to Spanish. |
So all that is pretty cool. But computers make a lot of decisions. There are a couple things we might worry about.
Sometimes those decisions go wrong, so how do we stop that from happening?
And if Al learns from past experiences, how do we make sure we don't repeat the mistakes of the past?
Al must be built and used responsibly
Al isn't all-knowing. And that means it can make mistakes, sometimes even really big, uncomfortable ones.
- AI predicts whether people will commit crimes.
- AI has a harder time recognizing the faces of black people compared to white people.
- AI can be used to create false or misleading text that spreads incorrect ideas.
If we know Al can make mistakes, we need to use and build it responsibly. Here's what you can do right now about that:
- Tell other people you know about how Al works and how common it is in real life
- Write a letter to your school or representative asking them to help spread the word about Al
- Check out podcasts, videos, articles, and classes about Al in your life
Want to join the conversation?
Me kinda scared
any one feeling the saam?(16 votes)
yes I fell the same we can all be AIs(1 vote)
How do I make an AI?(8 votes)
Neat! How do you guys think AI will be used for learning?(7 votes)- If AI grows enormously will we see a huge metamorphosis of the daily life and jobs till year 2030 ??(4 votes)
Yes absolutely. AI is going to replace lots of people's jobs, like artists, computer programmers, and even physical jobs. But it will also generate more jobs as well. If AI is going to be created at a massive scale then, it'll need lots of creators, so one job that is growing already today is AI creators.(4 votes)
AI is an amazing source, don’t get me wrong, you can ask questions, you can talk to someone when no one is around, but tbh…………………..I think AI is kinda getting outa hand. They can share our information, personal btw, to other apps. I just don’t think it’s safe….😬(4 votes)
Also because it explains that it has more trouble recognizing and distinguishing darker colors, so people with darker skin tones could be more "suspicious" because according to AI it is like putting a mask on your head.(1 vote)
AI in five... four... three... two...(3 votes)- wait, ai's real :D
but whats tictok?(3 votes) - So A.I. is racist?(2 votes)
It was kind of creepy. Last time i was on this app called character ai, and the ai just started random topics about life. It scared me ALOT.(2 votes)