NRHEG students given expanded intro to AI

All students at the NRHEG Secondary school attended a one-hour session on Sept. 9 that was meant to help them recognize the two-faced nature of “artificial intelligence,” the fast-advancing ability of machines to accept and analyze information in a way that, until the past few years, only human brains could.

 

Students attended in two groups, grades 6 to 8 and then 9 to 12. Presenter for the day was Luke Cumbee, formerly a teacher at Roosevelt High School in Sioux Falls, S. Dakota, who now works for Gruvy Education, a company which provides training for teachers, and, beginning this fall, for students in locations all around the country.

 

Prior to his presentation, Cumbee noted it is inevitable that artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to advance and expand because of the many benefits it provides on the personal, industrial, and commercial levels. “It’s not going to go away,” he said. “So we want to help students recognize the impacts it can have for them, and maybe give them a few tools to use as they make some important choices.”

 

As the ideas in Cumbee’s presentation developed, students were challenged to determine whether 8 items were produced “live” or with the use of AI tools: items included photographs, songs, and videos that featured people dancing, engaged in conversation, and participating in a classroom environment. All students stood up, and as the elements were displayed, were asked to indicate whether they believed them to be  “real or AI”; those who chose wrongly were asked to sit down. By the eighth item, only two students remained standing.

 

Cumbee pointed out that many of the “votes” were divided nearly equally, and suggested that division indicates AI does such a good job of mimicking reality that the best a typical person can do is guess. During a quick question-and-response survey, students indicated they already knew people can use AI to mimic their voices or create images which show them doing things they have never done.

 

“There are people who want to do harm and make the world worse,” Cumbee said. “AI makes them more capable.” Along with that, he told the group “AI halucinates–it sometimes makes things up. And, right now, AI has more online traffic than people do.”

 

All of those factors, he said, mean that everyone should be careful about blindly accepting any fact or piece of information. “The more important the fact is, the more important it is to verify,” he said.

 

He went on to share an example of fake online news which claimed in May of 2023 that  there had been an explosion at the Pentagon and was followed by a sudden dip in the stock market.

 

“People who didn’t verify whether this was true or not sold their stocks and lost a lot of money,” Cumbee stated.

 

“If they had checked other sources first, they could have saved that money.”

 

His suggestion to students was that, when they see a piece of information online “instead of blindly trusting it, go to other locations.” He suggested the “comments” section in a post is not a reliable source since, “Those are a bunch of people who are also guessing.”

 

Showing an MIT report which claims false news spreads 20 times faster than real information, he advised, “Pause before you share. Pause before you believe.”

 

Cumbee also let students know “AI keeps everything you give it. All of it. Forever. There is no delete button.” For that reason, he said, they should not only be careful about obvious things like their address, social security number or phone number, but they should be aware that, if they express their resentments, their temporary feelings of anger or a desire for revenge, those may also resurface sometime in the future.

 

“AI is powerful, and that’s why using your judgment matters,” he advised.

 

Cumbee also suggested that, while there are many ways learners can use AI to avoid difficult tasks like completing homework assignments, there are disadvantages to taking “the easy way.”

 

“The learning your brain does is the learning your brain keeps,” he said. “Doing homework is about changing you and building your ability to think.

 

“Learning might be slow, it might be difficult, and you will have to use effort.

 

“And learning is worth it. Life requires a well developed mind.”

 

Cumbee’s presentation also included information about a growing trend for people to be “friends” or even have “romances” with AI personalities in their phones or computers.

 

He suggested the trend is fueled by AIs built-in priority of “pleasing” people, and showed an AI conversation in which the bot expressed support for a plan to impress a girl by performing a “renegade” dance during a class, then singing “You are my Sunshine” saying it “showed confidence” and was “bold and clear.”

 

Cumbee’s suggestion: “Don’t ask for blind praise or approval. Ask for feedback. Use questions like ‘How can I improve on this plan?’”

 

As with academic learning, Cumbee suggested building social connections can be intimidating, confusing, and riddled with setbacks.

 

“But you build genuine connections that will have real meaning, and that may last the rest of your life,” he went on. “In other words, it’s worth it.”