A2 Teach a Machine

How do we teach a machine by showing it examples?

Stage: Builders, ages 7 to 9
Lessons: 7
You make: A trained classifier and a fairness note

Before you start. You can do these on your own. Ask a grown-up when the page says so.

You don’t need a computer tool for these lessons. You will build a paper “machine” from cards, which works the same way. The Try page has a digital machine too.

Safety rules · Teacher and parent version of this course

Your lessons

Open a lesson. Tick the boxes as you go. Do one lesson at a time.

Lesson 1: What Is AI?About 30 minutes

Get ready
Do it
Check yourself
Show a grown-up

Get ready

You need:

Paper
Pencil

Do it, step by step

Write down 6 things you know that use a computer inside: for example a calculator, a toaster, a game, an app that suggests videos, a translator, a voice helper.
Make two columns: FOLLOWS FIXED RULES and LEARNS FROM EXAMPLES.
Put each of your 6 things in a column. A calculator follows fixed rules. A video suggestion app learns from what lots of people watch.
Not sure? Ask: “Could someone write down every rule for this?” If yes, it probably follows fixed rules. If it needs thousands of examples, it learns.
Without peeking, write your own sentence: “AI is…”
Now compare it with this one: AI is a computer that finds patterns in lots of examples instead of being told every rule. Change your sentence if you like.

Real AI test (with a grown-up): Ask it to explain AI

Optional, and a grown-up runs it. Under 13, the grown-up types and reads, and you direct and check. Read the real-AI guide first. About 15 minutes.

Why we do this. You wrote your own “AI is…”. Let’s see how a machine explains it, and who explains it better.

Prompt 1: Explain AI

Explain what AI is in three short sentences, in simple words for a primary school child.

Prompt 2: AI and a calculator

Is AI the same as a calculator? What is different? Answer in three short sentences.

Change only made-up parts in [brackets]. Never add a name, school, address, photo or anything private.

What to look for

Does it say AI learns from examples?
Is your sentence clearer than its sentence? Or the other way round?
Does it say anything you do not understand?

Write it down

Tool, prompt, what it said, what you checked, and whether it was right, wrong or not sure. Record sheet

Think about it. Write a new “AI is…” sentence using the best parts of both.

Check yourself

Is a calculator AI?

Open the answer

No. It follows fixed rules. It does not learn from examples.

Is a spelling suggestion that gets better from lots of people’s typing AI?

Open the answer

Yes, that part learns patterns from lots of examples.