IST Day of AI
In late July, the Year 9 and 10 IST classes participated in a day of learning about Artificial Intelligence, with two Year 9 students winning the NSW competition run as part of the day. This whole day incursion called “Day of AI” was a program developed by MIT and adapted for delivery in Australia. To help us prepare for the day Ms O’Sullivan and myself were involved in a series of training workshops. Activities on the day included being able to recognise what Artificial Intelligence is and how do machines actually gain intelligence. The girls had lots of fun teaching the computer to recognise images of cats, dogs and people and then testing their model with a range of images. This helped them develop an understanding of the importance of data sets and how bias can be introduced into these. The controversial issue of Deepfakes was examined and students conducted a hands-on activity to help them gain some understanding of how computers can develop original video and images that can be passed off as real and the ethical considerations around this technology.
In the final session for the day, all the students worked in pairs to develop an idea of how they would use AI to solve a real-world problem they identified. Some amazing concepts were proposed – including drones to recognise people in danger in the surf, locating areas where bees have been depleted, and a pen which would analyse students’ writing and suggest ways to make it more readable. The proposal of two of our year 9 students, Gabrielle Cheung and Sophia Barry, to ensure that electric vehicles are no longer undetectable for blind people, won the NSW competition and was awarded 3rd prize nationally. As well as receiving a $250 gift voucher from JB-HiFi they will also be offered a week of work experience with an Australian top technology company when they are in Year 10.
The judges commented that “it was great to see how much thinking and creativity went into the pitch to bring the technology to life. Your application of how your invention would work, as well as the data needed, was incredibly comprehensive and thoughtful and demonstrated how much you learnt throughout the day.”
Mrs Rumpler
Computing Teacher
