MIT Invented a Way for Parents to Teach A.I. to Kids…By Playing ‘Bingo’

Published on December 29, 2019

B-I-N-G-O and A.I. was his name-o. The age of artificial intelligence, or A.I. is finally upon us. Now how do we cope with this hauntingly beautiful reality? There’s no running from it. It’s everywhere. So, you either learn it, or find yourself completely and utterly irrelevant in all facets of your life. And Bingo is the way to achieve such knowledge.

Was that harsh? Good. Because you don’t want your children and future generations to suffer because you simply refuse to adapt to the world around you.

But don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be all that complicated. You don’t have to go take some fancy course or sit through a boring seminar that you can barely make out the words coming out of the keynote speaker’s mouth.

Instead, you can resort to a simpler method. A game. One you probably grew up with: Bingo.

MIT Invents A.I. Bingo…For Kids

Designed by Blakeley H. Payne, a researcher at MIT, A.I. bingo is a thing. And it can help expose children (and digital immigrants) to the way technology and A.I. works.

Specifically, the game is built upon pedagogical research that is designed to help develop interest in STEM and improve the individual’s job prospects later in life. It’s also a significantly broader curriculum designed for and tested by students from ages 9 to 14.

But secretly, it teaches the parents too. Shh, don’t tell anyone.

A.I. For Dummies

So, you’ve heard the phrase A.I. thrown around alot, even in this article, yet I haven’t defined it for you. That’s because there is no universal definition.

Rather, A.I. is comprised of three parts:

  1. A data set,
  2. A learning algorithm, and
  3. A prediction

Simple enough, right?

Well, now we need to define each of the three elements:

Data Set

A “data set” (“D”) is a collection of curated, or created data, which includes images, increments of time, social media views, statistics, emojis, words, video, and audio recordings. The list goes on. Any type of valuable information that can be scraped, compiled, and applied to the world around you to help achieve a better understanding as to the world around you.

Algorithm

An “algorithm” is a set of instructions or automated command that turns something (an input) into something else entirely (an output). Think of it as a set of instructions designed to create something that doesn’t currently exist–whether it’s in the physical world or digital world. In this context, we are talking about the digital world.

The context in which we refer to algorithms with respect to A.I. is a “learning algorithm,” or a continuously changing set of instructions that “learns” to write its own further instructions based upon previous inputs and outputs.

But how do they “learn?” Parameters. Boundaries. For example, an email spam filter (whitelist/blacklist) helps train an email server what patterns of incoming messages to accept or push elsewhere.

Prediction

Lastly, based upon the learning algorithm, it then makes a decision, or rather, prediction (“P”), based upon its continuously evolving instructions. In this case, that email spam filter would decide whether an incoming message is actually spam or legitimate, deciding to allow it into the network, or pushing it somewhere else.

Together, the three elements allow for the completion of a task (“T”). There, A.I. for dummies…in a flash!

Example

T: Have an email go to your spam folder
D: examples of emails that are or aren’t spam
P: whether a new email is spam

How Does This Game of A.I. Bingo Work?

Let’s start with the kiddos.

Grab two teams consisting of 1-2 people. Each bingo tile on a card will contain something you do in your life that uses an A.I. system. Your job is to figure out what data sets the A.I. would need and what predictions it would make.

As an adult reads off the list of data sets and predictions one by one, try your best to figure out where they belong. Use a pencil to fill in the tile. The first team to fill in five squares with the correct data set and prediction in a row, diagonal, or column wins.

Now onto the parents, or digital immigrants who secretly have no idea what they are supposed to do to teach this foreign concept to their children.

Parents

First, print out all the materials here, with each bingo card on a separate piece of paper (2 pieces total) and the list of data sets and predictions on a third piece of paper.

See, you already know the definition of those words!

Bingo Card | Photo Credit: Tomi Um

Next, pass out the bingo cards to each team and keep that list of data set and predictions for yourself. Don’t let any peaking eyes glance over it! This is essentially the answer key and bingo calls.

Finally , read out the data set and predictions pairs at random (but don’t read the task itself!), and have the players fill in the tile they think that data set/prediction pair belongs to.

The first two teams to correctly fill out five tiles in a row, diagonal, or column wins.

Here’s an example:

T: Send a voice-to-text message
D: transcribed audio of people talking
P: transcription of your audio message

T: Use a Snapchat filter
D: examples of people’s faces
P: where to paste glasses on your face

T: Replace letters, like “lol,” with a suggested emoji
D:what each emoji could mean
P: the best emoji to replace what you’ve texted

And there you have it, you essentially were an A.I. computing machine for your kids!

Andrew "Drew" Rossow is a former contract editor at Grit Daily.

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