Prompt Like A 3-Year-Old
A fun way of introducing Generative AI to participants that encourages them to put aside their valid questions about the ethics and real-world implications and explore the new technology in the spirit of discovery. First you do a demo using the type of questions small children ask to understand the world and then you ask participants to go and 'play like a 3-year-old' with a tool themselves.
The purpose
Help participants put aside worries about the disruptive implications of Generative AI for their job and build a positive experience of using it.
Give them some insight into the experience & attitudes of many current and future students who first encounter Gen AI not as a threat but as a fun toy.
What you need
Setting it up
Legally locate a small child, we used a dinosaur obsessed 3-year-old, and invite them to ask "the robot in your phone" questions about anything they'd like.
Consider giving them a chance to generate pictures too, give the average 3-year-olds preoccupation with poo this can be a good opportunity to harvest innocent prompts which will fall foul of many Gen AI tools' explicit content blocks.
Use the prompts to design a demo of the Gen AI tool you used for participants in the session
How long does it take?
About 15-20 minutes total. We suggest 5 minutes for the demo, followed by 10-15 minutes where participants use the Gen AI tool in small groups.
How it works
Using prompts gathered from a small child, run a demo of a Gen AI tool.
Put participants into small groups and give them around 10 minutes to have fun with the AI, asking silly questions, creating pictures or creative writing.
Let them know each group will be sharing their creations and outputs when everyone comes back together.
Suggested follow-up
Provide a space for people to share & talk about their creations, eg. a round robin, posting to a chat in an online meeting, a padlet for asynchronous sessions.
Where it works well
With groups that are new to Generative AI.
With groups that have been largely dealing with the disruption caused by Gen AI to, for example, assessments.
We have primarily used this in live online sessions, but it could be adapted to both face-to-face and asynchronous settings.
What to watch out for
Participants may default to asking serious questions and testing it on their area of work. You can gently guide them towards more fun interactions but remember that you can't force fun.
Some participants question the validity of putting aside critical thinking and real world concerns, emphasize that these are important and there will also be space to discuss them.
Resources
Authorship
This entry was written by Maria O'Hara.