22 June 2023
In August 2021, India’s Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) partnered with Intel to launch “AI for All” - a free, online, self-paced course to introduce the basic concepts of Artificial Intelligence to the Indian public. An increasing number of countries are designing courses like AI for All to encourage residents to learn about Artificial Intelligence. As the global conversation around AI regulation gathers steam, these courses will play an important role in ensuring that the public discourse about these technologies is well-informed and not based on misconceptions and hyperbole. It is imperative, therefore, that these learning materials are made widely available, free to learners, available in multiple languages and formats, and are kept up to date with the latest advancements in technology.
Since its launch less than 2 years ago, the AI for All course has reached over 3 million learners across the country. The course is available in 11 languages and is available in standard file formats for Braille.
The introduction to the AI For All course
AI for All is a two-part course meant for an audience with low or no prior knowledge of concepts or terminology associated with Artificial Intelligence. The course takes approximately 3 hours to complete and learners who successfully complete all the activities in each section, are awarded a badge and a certificate from the CBSE and Intel. Developed by Intel as part of the company’s “AI for Citizens” Program, the course aligns with the India’s National Education Policy’s emphasis on “preparing everyone for an AI-driven economy”.
The badge and certificate issued to learners at the end of each section of the AI for All course.
The course begins with some basic definitions of AI and goes on to describe day-to-day examples of Artificial Intelligence like smart home devices (for example, air conditioners). The course also describes some examples of AI use during the COVID-19 pandemic although these examples sound hypothetical and did not mention specific projects. For example, the course claims that “AI is helping doctors to treat patients with minimal contact” without mentioning how or where. This first section of the course (called “AI Aware”) concludes with a short discussion on common misconceptions about AI.
“To make AI a genuine part of your everyday life, you should know that AI is merely a tool to solve a problem, not the solution itself.”
- A quote from the AI For All course.
The second section of the two-part course is called “AI Appreciation” and showcases some examples of the use of Artificial Intelligence in six sectors (Agriculture, Healthcare, Transportation, Private Offices, Government Offices and Art). The course introduces these examples to explain some of the “Domains of AI” - specifically, Statistical Data, Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision (CV) - using short videos, interactive exercises, games and quizzes. For instance, it describes how AI can analyze vast amounts of data and past trends to make suggestions for improving farm yields. The course concludes with a discussion about AI Ethics, which briefly covers issues of discrimination and bias, and responsible AI principles.
AI for All was launched in the Summer of 2021 to serve as a basic introduction for the general public to improve awareness about what AI is capable of. The course makes clear that it “does not claim to skill/train or make you an AI expert,” rather it seeks only to enable learners to be able to better communicate about AI. But the realm of possibilities for AI has widened significantly since the time the course was launched. Today’s generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Bard and Midjourney (among others), are capable of helping even non-technical people use AI to simplify specific tasks like drafting a complaint to the national consumer rights forum or filing a Right to Information request in the correct format.Throughout the course, there are interactive exercises and games to familiarize learners with applications of AI. For example “Artify” is a tool that uses Computer Vision to combine the styles and features from one image with another image to generate quirky art - a task that pales in comparison to the advanced prompt-based image generation that tools like Midjourney are capable of today. In that context, AI for All misses an opportunity to educate learners about more recent and impactful applications of AI despite its well-intentioned mission to get people “from all walks of life … acquainted with Artificial Intelligence”.
A screenshot from the AI for All Course
Finland launched a similar course called Elements of AI in 2018. Currently available in 26 languages, over one million people have taken the course. Elements of AI is a slightly more technical introduction to Artificial Intelligence than India’s AI For All. It attempts to explain concepts of AI, machine learning and neural networks in plain language and includes games and exercises commonly taught in the computer sciences to do so such as Towers of Hanoi and the Rowboat puzzle. As a follow on to this basic introduction, the creators of Elements of AI - the University of Helsinki and a company called “Minnalearn” - also offer a second course called “Building AI” which offers a deeper dive into the algorithms and practical methods behind Artificial Intelligence for learners who have a background in programming languages like Python. Though both courses are free of cost to access, learners in the Building AI course have to pay €50 to access a course completion certificate. The University of Finland along with partners in government including the City of Helsinki, Amsterdam and London also offers another course - one that seeks to introduce people to questions of AI ethics called Ethics of AI.
In Singapore, AI Singapore (AISG), launched in 2017, is training thousands of residents through the country’s TechSkills Accelerator programme in specialized courses aimed at students, educators, professionals, and collaborators.
In May 2023, InnovateUS, a digital and data skills training program run by the Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern and The GovLab, released a free, hands-on tutorial for public professionals on how to use Generative AI to improve governance and responsiveness to residents. Courses like these are an important resource to improve the general public’s awareness about Artificial Intelligence, its uses, its potential and its risks and equip them with a foundation to learn a next-gen skillset. A well-informed public conversation around AI will also go a long way in dispelling misconceptions about these new technologies and help with articulating genuine concerns in response to which governments can design more effective policies.
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Thumbnail for this post was created using Midjourney - a generative AI tool (https://midjourney.com)