AI in middle school: using pen and paper to teach about algorithmic bias. From the article:

Educators are grappling with how to teach children to be responsible consumers of [AI] technology.

Blakeley H. Payne has one idea. A graduate research assistant at MIT Media Lab who studies the ethics of AI, Ms. Payne designed a curriculum to teach children about concepts like algorithmic bias and deep learning. She tested the week-and-a-half-long program in October with about 225 fifth- through eighth-grade students at David E. Williams Middle School in Coraopolis, Pa., outside Pittsburgh….

Her “unplugged” curriculum mainly uses pen, paper and craft supplies so that teachers can adapt it for their classrooms, regardless of budget or technological know-how. Each 45-minute lesson typically includes a short lecture and demonstration, followed by a group activity and open-ended discussion….

[From the interview with Blakeley Payne]: I think kids struggle to recognize that it’s not something like a pet. You have to integrate the ethics piece at every point, because you never want to fall into the trap of presenting an AI system as like a mathematical equation, with the authority of a mathematical equation….

We’ve been teaching them about how AI can be helpful or harmful from the womb. The literature suggests that around middle school is a time when they’re having these higher, more complex moral-reasoning thoughts. The idea is to target them as soon as possible when we think that they’re capable of doing this.

For other posts on AI and ethics, see here