How to Teach Kids About AI

Today's middle schoolers may be the first "artificial intelligence natives," a generation that's grown up interacting with YouTube's algorithm or Amazon's Alexa smart speaker. Educators are grappling with how to teach children to be responsible consumers of the technology. Blakeley H. Payne has one idea. A graduate research assistant at MIT Media Lab who studies the ethics of AI, Ms. Payne designed a curriculum to teach children about concepts like algorithmic bias and deep learning. She tested the week-and-a-half-long program in October with about 225 fifth- through eighth-grade students at David E. Williams Middle School in Coraopolis, Pa., outside Pittsburgh.