I-Robot: Making Your Own AI

Module Description:

I-Robot takes a look at the evolution of artificial intelligence from its origins to what may come in the future, and the ethics of this emerging technology.  Ninth graders study big ideas like the definitions of intelligence, the ways we store it, and use the Turing test to try to distinguish human intelligence from chatbots.  Then they try their hand at programming a reactive machine to find its way out of a maze.

Programming Robots

In the scenes below you can witness students testing their robots in the maze.

Freedom of Reach: the ethics of an unhindered platform

Module Description:

In this module we’ll look to explore what the new Wild West really is. The internet and social media is an ever growing world that is unregulated by governments and even themselves. The class will look into Supreme Court cases as well as an article about the exposing of Facebook and the practices they were doing to users. Students will also go on a walk to Moynihan Train Hall and interview travelers about their screen time. Seeing how long we really spend on phone and what this is doing to ourselves as humans will be an eye opening experience for every group!

Supreme Court Cases

We first help students to understand their rights on social media by looking into a case that made it all the way to the Supreme Court about a cheerleader in a simple snapchat post. We explore the right of Freedom of Speech and how this is being infringed upon on the internet. You can read more about the case here. 

Screen Time Field Trip

Students travel to Moynihan Train Hall to interview travelers about their screen time. They first have interviewees guess how much time they spend on their phones per day and what their most used app is. Then students direct them to check this in their own settings so that we can use the data in a small statistics lesson at school. We then use our data and compare it to national studies to see if the busiest city in the world holds up to the rest of the country. To wrap up, students have a discussion about what echo chambers are and how spending hours on our phone might be inhibiting our freedom of speech. 

Freedom of Reach: The Facebook Files 

Module Description:

Freedom of Reach: The Facebook Files examines the leaked documents released by Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen and the ethical questions they raise. Students investigate years of Meta's internal research and the implications of their findings remaining private. The leaked documents reveal that through algorithmic bias and manipulation, time online has resulted in issues spanning from declining mental health to ethnic genocide. Additionally, students enjoy a visit from behavioral scientist and Avenues parent Dr. Corey H. Basch, whose research is on the cutting edge of this issue. Does Meta have a corporate responsibility to modify their algorithm to protect users? Is this the premiere public health crisis of Gen-Z? Now that we know, where do we go from here? 

Health & Tech: Do wearable technologies make us happier and healthier?

Module Description:

In this module, students are exploring technology around wearable devices and learning about how they work, what they do, the data they produce and the ethics around how communities, individuals, companies and governments use this data. Students learn how to protect their privacy when sharing GPS data, create artwork using GPS tracking data, and learn how to record and interpret health data. Students are looking at case studies surrounding GPS and Health Data, menstrual cycle tracking done by algorithms and potential implications in the United States, ethical issues around being location tracked by family and friends, and how our personal health can be affected by being provided all the data that wearables generate. 

Fitness Art

As part of this module, students learned about health wearables. Specifically, how to use the Garmin Watch devices by going outside to exercise. They analyzed the data and discussed important topics such as AI fitness recommendations, GPS tracking issues, data protection and data manipulation. They learned how to make fitness art using the app Strava. Click here to learn how to make it yourself. The group discussed ethical dillemas based on case studies and questions such as:

• How/why is GPS tracking awesome?

• What are short term and long term benefits and consequences of GPS Data collection and sharing?

• Who are the potential stakeholders affected by Strava’s GPS data collection?

• What unforeseen consequences do we think we can predict or foresee because of people using health data or devices for personal benefit?

Click the arrows below to swipe through pictures from the fitness art activity. 

AI on Trial: Ethics, Law and AI in Future and Fiction

Module Description:

This module serves as both an introduction to basic ethical philosophy, answering foundational questions like, “What exactly are ethics,” and as a speculative exploration of how non-human persons would fit into our current and future ethical systems. Through the module, students explore questions surrounding the source and rationale behind rights and privileges of humans, animals and, more speculatively, sentient AI. The module capstones with a glimpse into a fictional future, where students must decide how humans and sentient robots coexist, if at all. 

Brave New World

Module Description:

In this Co.Lab group, the ninth graders focus on the grade-level's J-term core text, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.  In this module's sessions, students deep-dive into the novel's themes, ethical questions, characters, and technologies. Students consider such topics as why Shakespeare's plays might be banned in the novel's "World State" as well as what the novel's legacy is in our own culture and time.  Students work independently and together to explore the controversial ways that the World State chooses to condition its citizens--and what happens when these citizens work against all they've been taught to believe.

Grade Wide Events

Guest Speaker: Dr. Mark Diaz

On Wednesday, January 18th, the ninth and tenth grade Co.Lab students were visited by Dr. Mark Diaz. Mark spoke to the students about the ethics of technology and how to use AI responsibly. Students participated in a breakout exercise surrounding the topic following the conversation. 

Mark is a research scientist in the Research Center for Responsible AI and Human-Centered Technology (RAI-HCT) at Google. He completed his Ph.D. in Technology & Social Behavior, a joint program in Computer Science and Communication at Northwestern University. His primary research probes the origins of social bias in data sets and its influence on algorithmic performance. Most recently, he has explored data annotation and the relationship between annotator positionality and the data annotators produce in subjective tasks, such as hate speech annotation. He also explores approaches to involving members of underrepresented groups in the development and evaluation of data-driven systems. Before beginning his doctoral work, he worked in industry developing virtual reality mobile applications and worked as a research assistant and programmer studying social identity in the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University. 

Outside of academic conferences and publications, Mark has been invited to discuss AI and social bias for events and publications hosted by New York University, Stanford, Northwestern University, American University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Morning Brew, and the AARP.

Guest Speaker: Dr. Doaa Abu-Elyounes

On Monday, January 23, the ninth grade Co.Lab had a virtual visit from Dr. Doaa Abu-Elyounes, who works at UNESCO on the ethics of artificial intelligence, and is an expert in how AI regulation and implementation is being considered and enacted globally. This built on what student learned from Dr. Diaz on Wednesday about how AI is developed, trained and employed by Google, and brings a broader global lens to many of the same themes and challenges they learned about. Each cohort discussed the following question: "Do we need to regulate artificial intelligence? If yes, why? And how binding should the regulation be?" Students learned some global terminology around regulating AI such as hard and soft law, depicted in the images below. 

Museum of Technology & Ethics in the year 2055

Each cohort created a “wing” of a museum which was an immersive experience for the guests. The ninth graders were tasked to design, curate, and present a collection of physical artifacts that share a vision of technology in the year 2055 under the driving question: "How might our current state of technology and ethics evolve in the future?"

Click the arrows below to swipe through the pictures from the museum!