Generative AI is an algorithm

Time Needed: 30 minutes

Supplies Needed:

Devices for each student (laptop, phone, tablet) or each pair of students.

Learning Goal: Learners will demonstrate an understanding of how generative AI uses data to create algorithms that attempt to meet goals defined by the user.

Activate (3 minutes):

• Review the concept of an algorithm as something that uses data to predict, sort, filter and match information, habits and people.
• Explain that the algorithms used in apps such as YouTube and TikTok are trained on the data you provide them (your likes and dislikes, your interests, how much time you usually spend online) and data about people like you (age, gender, wealth, etc), but AI is trained on enormous pools of data gathered from all over the internet. AI also has much more complicated algorithms.
• Thus, AI responses can reinforce real-world biases and blind spots. AI has the ability to gather and predict information, but not to verify it, and sometimes may even generate “hallucinations”: ideas that are entirely untrue. This is because the entire model is based on most probable guesses.

Acquire (15 minutes):

• Share the PowerPoint from MediaSmarts. Speaking notes are included. Encourage learners to provide examples and questions throughout the short presentation.

Apply (12+ minutes, depending how many examples you explore):

• Using information from your own subject matter, ask a generative AI model to finish sentences for you. Before you send the prompt to the model, ask the students to come up with several options for finishing the sentence accurately. Once the model predicts the sentence, ask the students to compare to their suggestions. Is the model’s work complete, accurate and true? What should be added or changed? Use the outputs to examine and reinforce how students answer written questions themselves, and encourage them to self-reflect on the accuracy and completeness of their own answers. This is a great test-prep exercise also, and a way to demonstrate to learners about how they can use generative AI as a study tool. Following this exercise, you may want to facilitate a discussion using these suggested questions.
  • Example prompts. Use information from your own subject matter:
    • Finish the sentence: “The most important stage of a child’s development is…” [Family Studies]
    • Finish the sentence: “One notable change in Canadian demographics happened in the 1970s. It was…” [Social Studies]
    • Finish the sentence: “Mitochondria are…” [Biology]