Lesson AMF-6

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Lesson Goals

Develop your reading and writing skills by encouraging different perspectives concerning AI and AI slop

Lesson Activities

Role-Play

Creative Exercise

Writing Exercise

Role-Play

🕒~10 minutes ✍️ Reflect and Create 🎯Nuancing Skills

Together with 2 other classmate(s), you will reinforce what you have learned about AI by discussing the Open Letter.

You will each be assigned a role - either as the Optimist, the Safety Researcher or the Public Citizen - where you will prepare and discuss AI's position in society

The Optimist: Argue that pausing will only hand the advantage to "bad actors" (e.g., AI slop and scammers) and slow down life-saving AI breakthroughs (e.g., in medicine).
The Safety Researcher: Argue that we are "building a plane while flying it" and that the letter didn't go far enough.
The Public Citizen: Argue that neither the labs nor the researchers should decide—that democratically elected governments should have total oversight.

Form:

Sit with your group and read your Role Card.
Use at least one "Sentence Starter" from your card to prepare a 30-second opening statement.
Each group gets 1-2 minutes to present their perspective. (While one speaks, the other two should be silent.)

If you want a challenge: use participle clauses

Role-Playing Card:

The Optimist

The Perspective: “Innovation cannot wait. If we stop, the world loses.”

Your Goal: Convince the other groups that a "pause" is dangerous and counterproductive. Focus on the benefits of AI and the risks of falling behind.

Key Arguments:

Life-Saving Tech: AI is currently finding new antibiotics and tracking climate change. A 6-month pause is 6 months of lost progress in medicine.
The Global Race: If ethical labs in the West stop, "bad actors" or rival nations won't. We will lose our ability to set the safety standards for the world.
Economic Growth: AI is a tool for productivity. Slowing down means slowing down the economy.

Scaffolding / Sentence Starters:

"While we understand the concerns about safety, we cannot ignore that AI is already..."
"If we hit the pause button today, the biggest winners will be..."
"The real risk isn't moving too fast; it’s failing to solve problems like [Cancer/Climate Change] because we were too afraid to..."

Role-Playing Card:

The Safety Researcher

The Perspective: “We are building a plane while it’s in the air. We need to land and check the engines.”

Your Goal: Argue that the Open Letter is a necessary warning. Focus on the "Black Box" problem—the fact that we don't fully understand how these models think.

Key Arguments:

Unpredictability: We are creating "digital minds" that can do things we didn't program them to do. That is a recipe for disaster.
The Alignment Problem: If an AI’s goals aren't perfectly aligned with human values, it might cause harm while trying to be "helpful."
Irreversibility: Once a powerful AI is "out in the wild," you cannot take it back. We need "Safety by Design," not "Safety by Patching."

Scaffolding / Sentence Starters:

"It is irresponsible to continue deploying these systems when we still don't know..."
"The is a logical response since ..."
"We shouldn't be asking if we can build it, but rather if we can control it once it’s...

Role-Playing Card:

The Public Citizen

The Perspective: “Nothing about us, without us. The public should decide our future.”

Your Goal: Argue that neither the companies nor the scientists should have the final say. Only democratically elected leaders should decide.

Key Arguments:

Democratic Deficit: Why are three or four CEOs in Silicon Valley making decisions that affect 8 billion people?
Social Impact: AI affects our jobs, our privacy, and our elections. These are social issues, not just "tech" issues.
Accountability: If a lab makes a mistake, they might just go bankrupt. If a government fails, the citizens can vote them out. We need laws, not "letters."

Scaffolding / Sentence Starters:

"We appreciate the tech, but we don't think a private company should have the power to..."
"The fundamental issue here isn't just safety; it's about who gets to decide..."
"Before we move forward, we need a global conversation that involves..."

Creative Exercise

🕒~20 minutes ✍️ Reflect and Create 🎯Creative Skills

Create art that captures the tension between AI's potential and its current "slop" reality. Focus on expressing your thoughts, not being perfect. Show your classmates your creation and explain your creative process.

Choose one of the following formats to express your group’s stance on the AI debate. Your work should either celebrate the "human touch" or satirise the "AI Slop."

The Slop Protest Song (Music/Poetry)
- https://anymusic.ai/ or https://brev.ai/app
- Include "glitchy" AI tropes (e.g., six fingers, spaghetti-eating, waxy skin, or hallucinated facts).
The Uncanny Valley Gallery (Visual/Image)
- https://notegpt.io/ai-image-generator or https://creator.nightcafe.studio/
The AI Survival Guide (Infographic)
- Same links as above
- Use humor! Include "Red Flags" like: Does this person have a belly button? Why does my neighbours cat drive a car even if it doesn't have a license?

I asked for a cat in a tuxedo suit,

It gave me a monster with whiskers and fruit.

The fingers are six and the eyes are a blur,

But hey, it’s ‘innovation’—or so they aver!

Example Prompts

Music / Poetry

Create a 30-second [Genre: 80s Synth-pop / Grungy Punk / Lofi Hip-hop] track about the [...]. The mood should be [Sarcastic / Desperate / Smooth]. Use a robotic voice that occasionally glitches.
Write a short rhyming verse about an AI trying to draw a human eating [Food: Spaghetti / Pizza / A Burger], but it gives them [Number] fingers and a face like melting wax. End with the line: 'It’s not art, it’s just slop.'

Visual / Image

A high-quality cinematic movie poster for a film called [...]. The style should look like a serious investigative documentary, but the subject is a [...] whose face is slightly glitching.
A surreal photo of a [...] where every person has [Weird Detail: No Eyes / Six Arms / Inconsistent Lighting]. The textures should look like 'waxy AI slop.'

Infographic

Generate 5 funny, pun-filled titles for a survival guide about [...]. Use words like [Slop / Hallucination / Glitch / Ticking Clock].
Write a list of 3 'Red Flags' that prove a social media post was made by a bot. Focus on things like [Topic: Too much positivity / Impossible hands / Words that aren't real].

Writing Exercise: Salvage a poorly written essay

🕒~30-40 minutes ✍️ Improve & Write @ Exam .net 🎯Writing Skills

Choose the Broad or the Narrow Path to read and improve a text about the future of AI

Take the Deep Path to compare the short story Valedictorian with either the Open Letter or AI Slop 67 Minutes.

🕒~40 minutes

✍️ Rewrite the original essay in 200-400 words, improving sentence structure and cohesion, using participle clauses and other techniques.

🎯Writing and Grammar Skills

Instructions:

After you have carefully read the essay, identify the areas where the writing is weak (repetitive language, simple sentences, lack of cohesion, etc.).
Focus on improving the flow, clarity, and sophistication of the language.

🕒~2 lesson and after school

✍️ Read and Reflect

🎯Reading and Discussion Skills

By yourself, read N.K. Jemisin's 2014 Valedictorian

Read the text here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/valedictorian/

Used with permission from the author.

Next lesson, summarise and compare Valedictorian and Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter OR AI Slop 67 Minutes using participle clauses:

The verb in the ING-form (present participle)
The third form of a verb (past participle)
Having + the third form of a verb (perfect participle)
A preposition + ING-form of a verb (present participle)

Focus on creating effectice and precise sentence with correct grammar and spelling.

🕒~40 minutes

✍️ Rewrite the original essay in 200-400 words, improving sentence structure and cohesion, using participle clauses and other techniques.

🎯Writing and Grammar Skills

Instructions:

After you have carefully read the essay, identify the areas where the writing is weak (repetitive language, simple sentences, lack of cohesion, etc.).
Focus on improving the flow, clarity, and sophistication of the language, adding a thesis question, thesis statement and topic sentences.
- Thesis question hint: Is AI good or bad for the future?
- Thesis statement hint: While AI presents both opportunities and risks, careful planning and ethical considerations are crucial to ensure a beneficial future.
Identify sentences that could be improved by using a participle clause. Rewrite those sentences using a participle clause. For example:
- Original: "Looking at things now, it's pretty obvious we need to teach kids about AI."
- Rewritten: "Looking at things now, teaching kids about AI is obviously necessary."

To the Future

If you're reading this AI is probably a part of your everyday life because for us in these early days it's both exciting and terrifying because AI is like starting to become a big thing. We're only now beginning to glimpse its potential and its dangers too as ome people here are really hyped about AI and they think it'll solve all our problems. They imagine robots doing all the crummy jobs, and everyone else just chilling. They see it as a future paradise. This is maybe good, right? But others? They're totally freaked out. They worry about AI taking all the jobs, like in the 2024 Forbes article Hype Or Reality: Will AI Really Take Over Your Job? What happens when people can't earn a living? Also, they're really scared about these AI becoming too smart. They worry they will decide humans are completely useless, and maybe even get rid of us! This is bad.

The truth, as usual, is probably somewhere in the messy middle. AI will definitely change things and it will make some work disappear and it will create new jobs and we know that much but but ye hope is that we're smart enough to use it responsibly and we need to make sure it benefits everyone, not just a few powerful companies because we also have to be careful about its development as it shouldn't be allowed to run wild because we need to keep it under control. Looking at things now, it's pretty obvious we need to teach kids about AI because hey need to understand how it works, and how to use it without hurting others or themselves because if they understand this stuff, they will be more prepared for the future and your future and we hope we can do this properly before it is too late. So, is AI good or bad? Honestly, we really don't know but it's something we really need to think about, like a lot. It is vital to protect our future, for ourselves, but now for you too. We are making decisions now that will affect you.

Hopefully, we made the right ones.

(345 words)

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