Requirement 2 of 8

Artificial Intelligence Basics

Identify how AI is used in life, work, and school, play the AI or Not game, and build a timeline of important AI milestones.

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Checklist

Requirement 2 discussion guide

Use these notes to identify where AI appears already in daily life and to prepare for the AI or Not game and milestone timeline.

Everyday life

Examples

  • Recommendation systems for videos, music, or shopping.
  • Spam filtering and smart email sorting.
  • Voice assistants and speech-to-text tools.
  • Phone photo organization and face recognition.
  • Navigation apps that predict traffic and routes.
  • Smart home devices and thermostats.
  • Customer-service chatbots.
  • Fraud alerts on banking apps.
  • Translation tools.
  • Search engines that rank and summarize results.

Work and school

Workplace examples

  • Scheduling and customer support tools.
  • Document analysis and search.
  • Quality control in manufacturing.
  • Fraud detection and security monitoring.
  • Forecasting, planning, and reporting tools.

School examples

  • Tutoring and study-support tools.
  • Writing feedback and brainstorming assistants.
  • Accessibility tools such as captions, reading support, or translation.
  • Practice-question generators.
  • Organization tools for notes, schedules, and research.

AI or Not and timeline

Preparation ideas

  • Look for whether a tool is making decisions, recognizing patterns, or learning from data rather than just following a simple fixed rule.
  • Possible milestone ideas include early AI research, expert systems, major machine-learning advances, deep learning breakthroughs, and popular generative AI tools.

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AI in the workplace

Identify five examples of how AI is currently used in the workplace.

Example ideas

  • Customer-service chatbots and support routing.
  • Fraud detection and cybersecurity monitoring.
  • Document search, summarization, and analysis tools.
  • Quality control in manufacturing and inspection.
  • Forecasting, scheduling, and planning support.

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AI for school and education

Identify five examples of how AI can be used at school or in support of your education.

Example ideas

  • Tutoring or study-support tools.
  • Writing feedback and brainstorming support.
  • Captions, translation, and other accessibility tools.
  • Practice-question or flashcard generation.
  • Note organization, research support, and schedule planning.

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AI or Not? game

Play ten rounds of the "AI or Not?" game with your counselor and discuss your answers.

What to look for

  • Ask whether the system is recognizing patterns, making predictions, or learning from data.
  • Compare that to tools that simply follow a fixed rule or a basic programmed response.

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AI milestone timeline

Create a timeline with five key milestones in the development of artificial intelligence.

Timeline ideas

  • Early AI research and the Dartmouth workshop.
  • Expert systems and rule-based AI.
  • Machine learning advances.
  • Deep learning breakthroughs.
  • Modern generative AI tools and assistants.

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