Establishing a Hub of Public Education in Artificial Intelligence

Robotics And Beyond’s AI Initiative

Purpose:

To establish Robotics and Beyond as a hub of knowledge for educating young people, parents, and working adults about Artificial Intelligence, its safe and effective usage, potential risks, and career and education paths in the field.

Why:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is among the most important topics facing our individual lives and society at this time. AI is a key part of the systems that create our social media feeds, online recommendations of music, art, food and other aspects of digital culture. It is already having a profound impact on developments in writing, art, music, science and engineering, and for learning, teaching and research on any topic and at all levels. AI has and will continue to impact the education, lives and careers of every young person, adult and parent, and every business, organization, school, and government. Robotics And Beyond, and the creators of this initiative, seek to provide perspective that assists people in understanding the opportunities and challenges that AI presents, both now and in the future. This initiative also seeks to aid individuals in navigating the many information sources available now and in the future, and in using/learning relevant AI powered tools.

A second motivation for this project is to provide young people with examples of mentors and presenters in the field of AI who are peers or near-peers to themselves. We want to encourage the pursuit of personal interests in AI and provide opportunities for many more mentor and leadership roles with Robotics And Beyond in the coming years. This will go hand in hand with career and education advising for young people interested in pursuing careers in AI and adjacent fields.

Who:

This project is being created by current and former Robotics And Beyond (RAB) peer-instructors, and is supported by several sponsors; all have a deep personal interest in the fields of AI and want to help the public understand and prepare for how it will affect the many aspects of their lives. Each event listing will include the instructor/discussion leader and short background.

What & How:

Our plan is to offer sessions involving lectures, workshops and discussion/class groups via three methods. Registration will be through our existing system so some people may need to create an account.

Seminars

Broken down to apply to either elementary/middle school, high school students, adults as parents, or (non-technology field) adults as related to the workplace. These are general information sessions giving a high-level view of what might be of most concern to a given group; not highly technical, heavy on discussion and questions. (90 min – 2 hours)

Workshops

Mainly intended for high school students but open to middle school and adults as well. Each session will focus on some specific tools or skills related to AI such as neural networks, LLMs (Large Language Models like ChatGPT and Perplexity), or AI (potential to be coupled with hardware). These are stand-alone events so attendance on multiple dates is not necessary. Initial workshops will be more technical and targeted at individuals with an interest in the field of AI, however there are many possible future topics. (2-4 hours)

Long Term Interest and Discussion/Class Groups

Open to high school, college students and adults. Content for topics will cover a range of topics about intelligence and neurology of living systems in general, as well as AI, and how crossover research is showing great value. The intent is to offer topic content online at first in order to identify interest level, and then to schedule in-person discussion events and grow an interest group. Other future topics will include LLMs, knowledge platforms (like Wolfram Mathmatica), and biologically inspired AI systems.

When:

Dates, times and topics for initial events will be announced through emails to our subscriber base, social media and our website.

• January 27, 2024 – 1:00-2:30pm. Seminar “Parenting in the Age of AI”
• February 4, 2024 – 1:30-3:30pm. Workshop “Build and Train a Neural Network”
• February 18, 2024 – 2:00-3:30pm. Workshop “Introduction to Generative Art, Part 1: Combining Coding, AI, and Art”
• March 17, 2024 – 2:00-4:00pm. Workshop “Introduction to Generative Art, Part 2: Coding of Mandelbrot Sets”

Generative Art Resources

• Generative Art Workshops Overview
• Part 1 Slides with background (introduction to Mandelbrot Sets)
• Part 2 Lesson Plan (mathematics and coding of Mandelbrot Sets)
• Description and Resources for Gen Art parts 1& 2

More resources for how AI can impact work and parenting

The Turing Lectures series features influential figures from the dynamic world of data science and artificial intelligence. Included in this series is “What’s the future for generative AI? – The Turing Lectures with Mike Wooldridge” on YouTube (one hour in length).

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