Artificial Intelligence Education: Editorial Introduction

Additional landmark events in the past 20 or so years that looked at the challenges of AI education have included the AI Education Workshop held at the 2008 AAAI conference and the Improving Instruction of Introductory Artificial Intelligence symposium held at the 1994 AAAI Fall Symposium. To quote Marti Hearst, the organizer of the 1994 symposium (Hearst 1994): "This symposium was motivated by the desire to address an oft-voiced complaint that introductory artificial intelligence is a notoriously difficult course to teach well." With the regular progression of the field and recent successes such as autonomous cars, deep learning, and IBM's Watson system, this situation has not become easier. At the same time, recent innovations in pedagogical technologies, such as massive open online courses (MOOCs), smartphones, and smart classrooms, have revolutionized how we view the art of teaching. We believe that now is a good time to take stock of state-of-the-art practices in the teaching of AI, as well as propose a vision for AI education in the future. This issue of AI Magazine includes five articles at the cutting edge of AI education. Each covers a subject of current concern to the AI education community. We note that the subject area expertise of the authors covers a wide range including robotics, knowledge-based systems, ethics, machine learning, and game theory. The article Ask Me Anything About MOOCs by Douglas Fisher, Charles Isbell, and Michael Littman was a unique project.