Hey Alexa, What Should Students Learn About AI? (nytimes.com) 22
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: While schools debate what to teach students about powerful new A.I. tools, tech giants, universities and nonprofits are intervening with free lessons," writes the NY Times reports in Hey, Alexa, What Should Students Learn About AI?
Senior Amazon executive Rohit Prasad visited a school in Boston called STEM Academy to observe an Amazon-sponsored AI lesson using Alexa, according to the article, "And he assured the Dearborn students there would soon be millions of new jobs in A.I." "We need to create the talent for the next generation," Mr. Prasad, the head scientist for Alexa, told the class. "So we are educating about A.I. at the earliest, grass-roots level."
A few miles away, Sally Kornbluth, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was delivering a more sobering message about A.I. to students from local schools who had gathered at Boston's Kennedy Library complex for a workshop on A.I. risks and regulation. "Because A.I. is such a powerful new technology, in order for it to work well in society, it really needs some rules," Dr. Kornbluth said. "We have to make sure that what it doesn't do is cause harm."
The same-day events — one encouraging work in artificial intelligence and the other cautioning against deploying the technology too hastily — mirrored the larger debate currently raging in the United States over the promise and potential peril of A.I. Both student workshops were organized by an M.I.T. initiative on "responsible A.I." whose donors include Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
The article emphasizes that schools face a big question: Should they teach AI programming and other AI-related skills employers will seek? "Or should students learn to anticipate and mitigate A.I. harms?"
Last week, Amazon agreed to pay $25 million to settle federal charges that it had indefinitely kept children's voice recordings, violating the federal online children's privacy law. The company said it disputed the charges and denied that it had violated the law. The company noted that customers could review and delete their Alexa voice recordings. But the one-hour Amazon-led workshop did not touch on the company's data practices.
Senior Amazon executive Rohit Prasad visited a school in Boston called STEM Academy to observe an Amazon-sponsored AI lesson using Alexa, according to the article, "And he assured the Dearborn students there would soon be millions of new jobs in A.I." "We need to create the talent for the next generation," Mr. Prasad, the head scientist for Alexa, told the class. "So we are educating about A.I. at the earliest, grass-roots level."
A few miles away, Sally Kornbluth, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was delivering a more sobering message about A.I. to students from local schools who had gathered at Boston's Kennedy Library complex for a workshop on A.I. risks and regulation. "Because A.I. is such a powerful new technology, in order for it to work well in society, it really needs some rules," Dr. Kornbluth said. "We have to make sure that what it doesn't do is cause harm."
The same-day events — one encouraging work in artificial intelligence and the other cautioning against deploying the technology too hastily — mirrored the larger debate currently raging in the United States over the promise and potential peril of A.I. Both student workshops were organized by an M.I.T. initiative on "responsible A.I." whose donors include Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
The article emphasizes that schools face a big question: Should they teach AI programming and other AI-related skills employers will seek? "Or should students learn to anticipate and mitigate A.I. harms?"
Last week, Amazon agreed to pay $25 million to settle federal charges that it had indefinitely kept children's voice recordings, violating the federal online children's privacy law. The company said it disputed the charges and denied that it had violated the law. The company noted that customers could review and delete their Alexa voice recordings. But the one-hour Amazon-led workshop did not touch on the company's data practices.
Why Alexa and A.I. is in the same sentence? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
That's exactly what I was thinking. What does Alexa have to do with AI?
Re: (Score:2)
Fuck the NYT (Score:4, Interesting)
"Someone vaguely from Amazon came to teach kids about AI in general AnD tHeY dIdN'T cOmMeNt On ThE cOmPaNy'S dAtA pRaCtIcEs!"
Yeah, because a bunch of kids trying to learn about basic AI concepts really give a fuck that some Karen got mad about Amazon not deleting Alexa prompts for the parents instead of them doing it themselves. Fuck ALL the way off.
Re:Fuck the NYT (Score:4, Insightful)
Teaching kids to play with data without thinking of where it's coming from or where it's going is grooming.
Re:Fuck the NYT (Score:4, Informative)
Teaching kids to play with data without thinking of where it's coming from or where it's going is grooming.
Naw, this is grooming [imgur.com].
Re: (Score:3)
Cowardly right-wing trolls love telling [snopes.com] easily debunked lies [nj1015.com] about the Mayor of Hoboken.
Remember kids, every accusation is a confession with these freaks.
Money comes from someone's pocket (Score:1)
AI is a buzzword..
ONE MILLION NEW JOBS? Ok. I'll play the math game. One million jobs when unemployment shows unfilled jobs right now, employment salaries dropping, and peoplle still not rushing because "living wages aren't there yet." Where exactly will ONE MILLION NEW JOBS be funded by, people hired for, and customers paying envords (who pay those employees) for services?
This isn't Southpark and the Undewer Gnomes Business Plan won't work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
To get ONE MILLION JOBS you
I'll at that one to the list of... (Score:3, Informative)
- The cheque's in the post
- Don't worry, I won't come in your mouth
- There'll be millions of jobs in AI
How do I know? Venture capital's only interested if you show them a business plan that slashes labour costs, i.e. makes a lot of people unemployed. That's what they mean by "disruptive."
Stay out (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep corporations out of schools. Corporate values are on the complete opposite spectrum of values needing taught in school. Someone in an earlier comment mentioned grooming. That's exactly what this is.
Re: (Score:3)
Keep corporations out of schools. Corporate values are on the complete opposite spectrum of values needing taught in school. Someone in an earlier comment mentioned grooming. That's exactly what this is.
You are 100% correct. But, having said that, it's all that school is in America now. We don't utilize school as a way to teach people how to think. We teach people to be good little automatons doing the corporate masters' bidding. Having companies come in to provide the education they hope the students have is just cutting out an extra step. Hell, the way things are going with Google recreating the company town, we're probably only a few years away from Amazon opening their own schools outright. "Enroll you
Yet another "Teach kids to code" story (Score:5, Insightful)
Should we teach kids to code? Yes, just like we (should) teach them music, art, and literature. Teach the basics, sure. While most won't be "good" at any of those subjects, exposure to them might light a spark in a few who have a talent they had never recognized before.
Coding, or in this case, principles of AI, are good subjects to expose children to. Just don't expect an army of coders, or AI engineers, to come out of it. And treat it like an art, realizing that it's important, but not a basic life skill like reading, writing, and math.
According to Alexa... (Score:2)
AI cycles (Score:2)
AI, AI, AI, aaaaiiiiieeeeee!!! (Score:2)
"Because A.I. is such a powerful new technology,..."
Stop right there, Myron. ChatGPT is a slightly fancier version of the Eliza program that someone came up with in the 1970s. It has no clue about what it's doing, it doesn't know what a fact is, and it's only marginally more context-aware than a Magic Eightball.
Nobody's managed to create actual AI yet. What we have is a massively indexed database that can repeat things that other people have said. It's charming, it's interesting, and it definitely will have
Grass roots? (Score:2)
We need to create the talent for the next generation," Mr. Prasad, the head scientist for Alexa, told the class. "So we are educating about A.I. at the earliest, grass-roots level.
This seems to be a corporate-style contradictory use of the words grass roots level.
Keep your astro turf the fuck away, amazon!
School (Score:1)