The past fortnight saw the pilot delivery of Beyond.Autonomous at Wheelers Hill Secondary College, the latest in our suite of offsite modules based on the CSIRO’s Our Future World report.
Addressing the global megatrend of ‘Increasingly Autonomous’, the four-lesson program encouraged students to engage in their curiosities on the inner workings of artificial intelligence, build an understanding of how machine learning models work, to then critically engage with AI-powered tools.
The first two lessons focused on delving into the black box of AI, first visualising the inner workings of supervised learning, before then breaking down how large language models ‘see’ words as numbers to generate outputs.
They tackled the age-old question of “Pizza or Pasta?” as they grappled with how data flows through a decision tree. Students then compared and contrasted how humans semantically link words vs. how machines organise words through embeddings.
The back half of the program saw students speak to an AI guest to create a podcast. Using a custom-built web app that interacts with ChatGPT, students were able to give their guests a persona and assign an area of expertise. They were then free to ask them questions before then critically analysing their response.
To create their podcast, students used Descript, a video editing software that possesses a suite of AI tools that serve to enhance both the user experience and end product. This includes the ability to clip out filler words, enhance audio and digitally focus eyes on the camera.
Student feedback from the program was fantastic, with 95% of students saying they used technology to learn while 85% of students learnt something new.
We thoroughly enjoyed the energy and enthusiasm that Wheelers Hill showed towards the program, and look forward to delivering the program to more of our partner schools throughout the year.
