Day of AI curriculum meets the moment

MIT Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) recently celebrated the second annual Day of AI with two flagship local events. The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate in Boston hosted a human rights and data policy-focused event that was streamed worldwide. Dearborn STEM Academy in Roxbury, Massachusetts, hosted a student workshop in collaboration with Amazon Future Engineer. With over 8,000 registrations across all 50 U.S. states and 108 countries in 2023, participation in Day of AI has greater than doubled since its inaugural 12 months.

Day of AI is a free curriculum of lessons and hands-on activities designed to show kids of all ages and backgrounds the fundamentals and responsible use of artificial intelligence, designed by researchers at MIT RAISE. This 12 months, resources were available for educators to run at any time and in any increments they selected. The curriculum included five recent modules to handle timely topics like ChatGPT in School, Teachable Machines, AI and Social Media, Data Science and Me, and more. A collaboration with the International Society for Technology in Education also introduced modules for early elementary students. Educators the world over shared photos, videos, and stories of their students’ engagement, expressing excitement and even relief over the accessible lessons.

Professor Cynthia Breazeal, director of RAISE, dean for digital learning at MIT, and head of the MIT Media Lab’s Personal Robots research group, said, “It’s been a 12 months of extraordinary advancements in AI, and with that comes obligatory conversations and concerns about who and what this technology is for. With our Day of AI events, we would like to have fun the teachers and students who’re putting within the work to ensure that AI is for everybody.”

Reflecting community values and protecting digital residents

MIT President Sally Kornbluth welcomed students from Warren Prescott Middle School and Latest Mission High School to the Day of AI program on the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the USA Senate. Kornbluth reflected on the exciting potential of AI, together with the moral considerations society must be chargeable for.

“AI has the potential to do all types of implausible things, including driving a automobile, helping us with the climate crisis, improving health care, and designing apps that we are able to’t even imagine yet. But what we’ve got to ensure it doesn’t do is cause harm to individuals, to communities, to us — society as a complete,” she said.

This theme resonated with each of the event speakers, whose jobs spanned the sectors of education, government, and business. Yo Deshpande, technologist for the general public realm, and Michael Lawrence Evans, program director of latest urban mechanics from the Boston Mayor’s Office, shared how Boston thinks about using AI to enhance city life in ways which are “equitable, accessible, and pleasant.” Deshpande said, “We’ve the chance to explore not only how AI works, but how using AI can line up with our values, the best way we would like to be on the earth, and the best way we would like to be in our community.”

Adam L’Italien, chief innovation officer at Liberty Mutual Insurance (one in all Day of AI’s founding sponsors), compared our present moment with AI technologies to the early days of non-public computers and web connection. “Exposure to emerging technologies can speed up progress on the earth and in your individual lives,” L’Italien said, while recognizing that the AI development process must be inclusive and mitigate biases.

Human policies for artificial intelligence

So how does society address these human rights concerns about AI? Marc Aidinoff ’21, former White House Office of Science and Technology Policy chief of staff, led a discussion on how government policy can influence the parameters of how technology is developed and used, just like the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. Aidinoff said, “The work of constructing the world you ought to see is way harder than constructing the technical AI system … How do you’re employed with other people and create a collective vision for what we would like to do?” Warren Prescott Middle School students described how AI could possibly be used to unravel problems that humans couldn’t. But in addition they shared their concerns that AI could affect data privacy, learning deficits, social media addiction, job displacement, and propaganda.

In a mock U.S. Senate trial activity designed by Daniella DiPaola, PhD student on the MIT Media Lab, the center schoolers investigated what rights could be undermined by AI in schools, hospitals, law enforcement, and corporations. Meanwhile, Latest Mission High School students workshopped the ideas behind bill S.2314, the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) Act, in an activity designed by Raechel Walker, graduate research assistant within the Personal Robots Group, and Matt Taylor, research assistant on the Media Lab. They discussed what level of control could or needs to be introduced on the parental, educational, and governmental levels to cut back the risks of web addiction.

“Alexa, how do I program AI?”

At Dearborn STEM Academy, Amazon Future Engineer helped students work through the Intro to Voice AI curriculum module in real-time. Students used MIT App Inventor to code basic commands for Alexa. In an interview with WCVB, Principal Darlene Marcano said, “It’s necessary that we expose our students to as many alternative experiences as possible. The scholars which are participating are on target to be future computer scientists and engineers.”

Breazeal told Dearborn students, “We would like you to have an informed voice about how you would like AI to be utilized in society. We would like you to feel empowered you can shape the world. You may make things with AI to assist make a greater world and a greater community.”

Rohit Prasad ’08, senior vice chairman and head scientist for Alexa at Amazon, and Victor Reinoso ’97, global director of philanthropic education initiatives at Amazon, also joined the event. “Amazon and MIT share a commitment to helping students discover a world of possibilities through STEM and AI education,” said Reinoso. “There’s quite a lot of current excitement across the technological revolution with generative AI and huge language models, so we’re excited to assist students explore careers of the long run and navigate the pathways available to them.” To spotlight their continued investment in the local people and the college program, Amazon donated a $25,000 Innovation and Early College Pathways Program Grant to the Boston Public School system.

Day of AI down under

Not only was the Day of AI program widely adopted across the globe, Australian educators were inspired to adapt their very own regionally specific curriculum. An estimated 161,000 AI professionals can be needed in Australia by 2030, in response to the National Artificial Intelligence Center within the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), an Australian government agency and Day of AI Australia project partner. CSIRO worked with the University of Latest South Wales to develop supplementary educational resources on AI ethics and machine learning. Day of AI Australia reached 85,000 students at 400-plus secondary schools this 12 months, sparking curiosity in the following generation of AI experts.

The interest in AI is accelerating as fast because the technology is being developed. Day of AI offers a novel opportunity for K-12 students to shape our world’s digital future and their very own.

“I hope that a few of you’ll determine to be a part of this larger effort to assist us work out the most effective possible answers to questions which are raised by AI,” Kornbluth told students on the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. “We’re counting on you, the following generation, to learn the way AI works and help ensure it’s for everybody.”