Fourteen-year-old Elsa Park typed away on a laptop in a conference room at Denison University.
“One thing I'm thinking is that these may just be outliers that the AI is identifying, like there's only one or two people and they just happen to be adults?” Elsa said.
“Maybe say like, 'just do the general data, don't focus on outliers,'" suggested 14-year-old Madison Murphy.
Park and Murphy, who will be freshmen next fall at New Albany High School and Westerville North High School, respectively, were among two dozen central Ohio high school students who spent four days learning about artificial intelligence at Denison University's first Tomorrow Tech Institute.
The students broke into groups and were tasked with using AI to solve problems for nonprofits, including the Granville Center for the Arts and Turtle Up, a sea turtle conservation organization all the way in Ghana in west Africa.
Park and Murphy's group was asked to figure out how to get more high schoolers interested in Pelotonia, the bicycle event that raises money for cancer research. They started by using AI to analyze demographic data about Pelotonia participants, including birth dates and hometowns.
“We have a very long data sheet, and so we're using AI to try to kind of sum it up and to figure out what areas have less participation," Murphy explained.
Park said they were looking for reasons why high school students might be skeptical about doing Pelotonia.
"AI is really good for showing us where the weaknesses in our thought processes are, right?" Park said.
Lori Robbins, head of AI strategy at Denison, said the inaugural AI camp was designed to help students develop their artificial intelligence skills, while also strengthening human skills, including creative problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration.
“We’re not just encouraging students to use the technology for the sake of using it," Robbins said. "And we're not really making AI seem like this amazing, shiny new tool that's gonna give you all the answers.”
Pros and cons of AI
The students spent the first day of camp learning about safety — like not sharing personal information with AI — and the technology's limitations.
"The fact that it can hallucinate, which means it's confidently lying to you. The tools are very biased...that they're sycophants and they're just gonna encourage you and agree with you," Robbins said.
Students then talked about the positives: AI can help with brainstorming. It can be a sort of “thought partner” that challenges ideas and pushes back.
Robbins found that many of the high school students came to camp a little skeptical about the technology. She could tell they’d been strongly discouraged from using AI in their schoolwork.
“And so, they're realizing this is kind of like having a superpower when I know how to use it well," Robbins said.
“We’re not just encouraging students to use the technology for the sake of using it. And we're not really making AI seem like this amazing, shiny new tool that's gonna give you all the answers.”- Lori Robbins, head of AI strategy at Denison University
AI in school and on the job
Murphy confirmed that she was not supposed to use AI in her middle school classes last year.
“I understand the part of plagiarism and stuff, but I do wish that more teachers would let us kind of use it as a tool. But not to fully complete our work, just to help us brainstorm, because I found that it does help me a lot," she said.
Meanwhile, at higher levels of education, many professors allow and even encourage students to use AI. Beginning last year, Ohio State started requiring freshmen to study AI.
Artificial intelligence is also increasingly prevalent in many jobs. Robbins noted that today's high school and college students may enter a workforce where they have AI colleagues.
Murphy and Park understand that.
"I think AI is just going to get more integrated with our future," Murphy said. "I mean, they've talked about how employers want people who have knowledge about AI, so I want to make sure that I know enough about AI."
Park added, “It’s not necessarily a bad thing. I think that it's becoming a skill that most people should learn.”
"What is it okay for us to let go of now? But then on the other hand, what do we need to protect?"- Lori Robbins, head of AI strategy at Denison University
The lesson in AI
Denison student interns Debjani Kurchi Kakon and Shizza Shafqat helped organize and oversee the camp as counselors.
Kakon, a rising sophomore from Bangladesh, is studying biology and global health with an intent to one day earn an MD-PhD. She understands that AI is becoming prevalent in medicine, so she wanted to learn more about it.
"AI is playing a huge role in early detection of tumors, finding patterns in brain scans and different kinds of biopsy," Kakon said.
Shafqat, a rising senior computer sciences major, was already very familiar with AI. She hoped the high school "campers" would learn that the technology is exciting, but isn't perfect.
"I think a lot of people in high school and college — they don't know how it works, so they trust it blindly, even though they should not be trusting it 100%," Shafquat said. "It's a really useful tool. It makes you work faster, but it cannot replace the human in the picture."
Robbins just wanted the Tomorrow Tech Institute campers to learn everything they could about AI.
"Even if it's something that you're really terrified of or that you hate, I would still say it's important to learn about it," Robbins said. “Learn how it works. Learn ways that it can help you in your day to day. What is it okay for us to let go of now? But then on the other hand, what do we need to protect?” Robbins said.
